Peveril of the Peak

“And now, young man,” said the King, “your errand is sped, so far as it can at present be forwarded.”

Julian bowed deeply, as to take leave at these words, which he rightly interpreted as a signal for his departure. Alice Bridgenorth still clung to his arm, and motioned to withdraw along with him. The King and Buckingham looked at each other in conscious astonishment, and yet not without a desire to smile, so strange did it seem to them that a prize, for which, an instant before, they had been mutually contending, should thus glide out of their grasp, or rather be borne off by a third and very inferior competitor.

“Mistress Chiffinch,” said the King, with a hesitation which he could not disguise, “I hope your fair charge is not about to leave you?”

“Certainly not, your Majesty,” answered Chiffinch. “Alice, my love – you mistake – that opposite door leads to your apartments.”

“Pardon me, madam,” answered Alice; “I have indeed mistaken my road, but it was when I came hither.”

“The errant damosel,” said Buckingham, looking at Charles with as much intelligence as etiquette permitted him to throw into his eye, and then turning it towards Alice, as she still held by Julian’s arm, “is resolved not to mistake her road a second time. She has chosen a sufficient guide.”

“And yet stories tell that such guides have led maidens astray,” said the King.

Alice blushed deeply, but instantly recovered her composure so soon as she saw that her liberty was likely to depend upon the immediate exercise of resolution. She quitted, from a sense of insulted delicacy, the arm of Julian, to which she had hitherto clung; but as she spoke, she continued to retain a slight grasp of his cloak. “I have indeed mistaken my way,” she repeated still addressing Mrs. Chiffinch, “but it was when I crossed this threshold. The usage to which I have been exposed in your house has determined me to quit it instantly.”

“I will not permit that, my young mistress,” answered Mrs. Chiffinch, “until your uncle, who placed you under my care, shall relieve me of the charge of you.”

“I will answer for my conduct, both to my uncle, and, what is of more importance, to my father,” said Alice. “You must permit me to depart, madam; I am free-born, and you have no right to detain me.”

“Pardon me, my young madam,” said Mistress Chiffinch, “I have a right, and I will maintain it too.”

“I will know that before quitting this presence,” said Alice firmly; and, advancing a step or two, she dropped on her knee before the King. “Your Majesty,” said she, “if indeed I kneel before King Charles, is the father of your subjects.”

“Of a good many of them,” said the Duke of Buckingham apart.

“I demand protection of you, in the name of God, and of the oath your Majesty swore when you placed on your head the crown of this kingdom!”

“You have my protection,” said the King, a little confused by an appeal so unexpected and so solemn. “Do but remain quiet with this lady, with whom your parents have placed you; neither Buckingham nor any one else shall intrude on you.”

“His Majesty,” added Buckingham, in the same tone, and speaking from the restless and mischief-making spirit of contradiction, which he never could restrain, even when indulging it was most contrary, not only to propriety, but to his own interest, – “His Majesty will protect you, fair lady, from all intrusion save what must not be termed such.”

Alice darted a keen look on the Duke, as if to read his meaning; another on Charles, to know whether she had guessed it rightly. There was a guilty confession on the King’s brow, which confirmed Alice’s determination to depart. “Your Majesty will forgive me,” she said; “it is not here that I can enjoy the advantage of your royal protection. I am resolved to leave this house. If I am detained, it must be by violence, which I trust no one dare offer to me in your Majesty’s presence. This gentleman, whom I have long known, will conduct me to my friends.”

“We make but an indifferent figure in this scene, methinks,” said the King, addressing the Duke of Buckingham, and speaking in a whisper; “but she must go – I neither will, nor dare, stop her from returning to her father.”

“And if she does,” swore the Duke internally, “I would, as Sir Andrew Smith saith, I might never touch fair lady’s hand.” And stepping back, he spoke a few words with Empson the musician, who left the apartment, for a few minutes, and presently returned.

The King seemed irresolute concerning the part he should act under circumstances so peculiar. To be foiled in a gallant intrigue, was to subject himself to the ridicule of his gay court; to persist in it by any means which approached to constraint, would have been tyrannical; and, what perhaps he might judge as severe an imputation, it would have been unbecoming a gentleman. “Upon my honour, young lady,” he said, with an emphasis, “you have nothing to fear in this house. But it is improper, for your own sake, that you should leave it in this abrupt manner. If you will have the goodness to wait but a quarter of an hour, Mistress Chiffinch’s coach will be placed at your command, to transport you where you will. Spare yourself the ridicule, and me the pain of seeing you leave the house of one of my servants, as if you were escaping from a prison.”

The King spoke in good-natured sincerity, and Alice was inclined for an instant to listen to his advice; but recollecting that she had to search for her father and uncle, or, failing them, for some suitable place of secure residence, it rushed on her mind that the attendants of Mistress Chiffinch were not likely to prove trusty guides or assistants in such a purpose. Firmly and respectfully she announced her purpose of instant departure. She needed no other escort, she said, than what this gentleman, Master Julian Peveril, who was well known to her father, would willingly afford her; nor did she need that farther than until she had reached her father’s residence.

“Farewell, then, lady, a God’s name!” said the King; “I am sorry so much beauty should be wedded to so many shrewish suspicions. – For you, Master Peveril, I should have thought you had enough to do with your own affairs without interfering with the humours of the fair sex. The duty of conducting all strayed damsels into the right path is, as matters go in this good city, rather too weighty an undertaking for your youth and inexperience.”

Julian, eager to conduct Alice from a place of which he began fully to appreciate the perils, answered nothing to this taunt, but bowing reverently, led her from the apartment. Her sudden appearance, and the animated scene which followed, had entirely absorbed, for the moment, the recollection of his father and of the Countess of Derby; and while the dumb attendant of the latter remained in the room, a silent, and, as it were, stunned spectator of all that had happened, Peveril had become, in the predominating interest of Alice’s critical situation, totally forgetful of her presence. But no sooner had he left the room, without noticing or attending to her, than Fenella, starting, as from a trance, drew herself up, and looked wildly around, like one waking from a dream, as if to assure herself that her companion was gone, and gone without paying the slightest attention to her. She folded her hands together, and cast her eyes upwards, with an expression of such agony as explained to Charles (as he thought) what painful ideas were passing in her mind. “This Peveril is a perfect pattern of successful perfidy, carrying off this Queen of the Amazons, but he has left us, I think, a disconsolate Ariadne in her place. – But weep not, my princess of pretty movements,” he said, addressing himself to Fenella; “if we cannot call in Bacchus to console you, we will commit you to the care of Empson, who shall drink with Liber Pater for a thousand pounds, and I will say done first.”

As the King spoke these words, Fenella rushed past him with her wonted rapidity of step, and, with much less courtesy than was due to the royal presence, hurried downstairs, and out of the house, without attempting to open any communication with the Monarch. He saw her abrupt departure with more surprise than displeasure; and presently afterwards, bursting into a fit of laughter, he said to the Duke, “Oddsfish, George, this young spark might teach the best of us how to manage the wenches. I have had my own experience, but I could never yet contrive either to win or lose them with so little ceremony.”

“Experience, sir,” replied the duke, “cannot be acquired without years.”

“True, George; and you would, I suppose, insinuate,” said Charles, “that the gallant who acquires it, loses as much in youth as he gains in art? I defy your insinuation, George. You cannot overreach your master, old as you think him, either in love or politics. You have not the secret plumer la poule sans la faire crier, witness this morning’s work. I will give you odds at all games – ay, and at the Mall too, if thou darest accept my challenge. – Chiffinch, what for dost thou convulse thy pretty throat and face with sobbing and hatching tears, which seem rather unwilling to make their appearance!”

“It is for fear,” whined Chiffinch, “that your Majesty should think – that you should expect – ”

“That I should expect gratitude from a courtier, or faith from a woman?” answered the King, patting her at the same time under the chin, to make her raise her face – “Tush! chicken, I am not so superfluous.”

“There it is now,” said Chiffinch, continuing to sob the more bitterly, as she felt herself unable to produce any tears; “I see your Majesty is determined to lay all the blame on me, when I am innocent as an unborn babe – I will be judged by his Grace.”

“No doubt, no doubt, Chiffie,” said the King. “His Grace and you will be excellent judges in each other’s cause, and as good witnesses in each other’s favour. But to investigate the matter impartially, we must examine our evidence apart. – My Lord Duke, we meet at the Mall at noon, if your Grace dare accept my challenge.”

His Grace of Buckingham bowed, and retired.

CHAPTER XXXII

        But when the bully with assuming pace,        Cocks his broad hat, edged round with tarnish’d lace,        Yield not the way – defy his strutting pride,        And thrust him to the muddy kennel’s side,        Yet rather bear the shower and toils of mud,        Than in the doubtful quarrel risk thy blood.– GAY’S TRIVIA.

Julian Peveril, half-leading, half-supporting, Alice Bridgenorth, had reached the middle of Saint Jame’s Street ere the doubt occurred to him which way they should bend their course. He then asked Alice whither he should conduct her, and learned, to his surprise and embarrassment, that, far from knowing where her father was to be found, she had no certain knowledge that he was in London, and only hoped that he had arrived, from the expressions which he had used at parting. She mentioned her uncle Christian’s address, but it was with doubt and hesitation, arising from the hands in which he had already placed her; and her reluctance to go again under his protection was strongly confirmed by her youthful guide, when a few words had established to his conviction the identity of Ganlesse and Christian. – What then was to be done?

“Alice,” said Julian, after a moment’s reflection, “you must seek your earliest and best friend – I mean my mother. She has now no castle in which to receive you – she has but a miserable lodging, so near the jail in which my father is confined, that it seems almost a cell of the same prison. I have not seen her since my coming hither; but thus much have I learned by inquiry. We will now go to her apartment; such as it is, I know she will share it with one so innocent and so unprotected as you are.”

“Gracious Heaven!” said the poor girl, “am I then so totally deserted, that I must throw myself on the mercy of her who, of all the world, has most reason to spurn me from her? – Julian, can you advise me to this? – Is there none else who will afford me a few hours’ refuge, till I can hear from my father? – No other protectress but her whose ruin has, I fear, been accelerated by – Julian, I dare not appear before your mother! she must hate me for my family, and despise me for my meanness. To be a second time cast on her protection, when the first has been so evil repaid – Julian, I dare not go with you.”

“She has never ceased to love you, Alice,” said her conductor, whose steps she continued to attend, even while declaring her resolution not to go with him, “she never felt anything but kindness towards you, nay, towards your father; for though his dealings with us have been harsh, she can allow much for the provocation which he has received. Believe me, with her you will be safe as with a mother – perhaps it may be the means of reconciling the divisions by which we have suffered so much.”

“Might God grant it!” said Alice. “Yet how shall I face your mother? And will she be able to protect me against these powerful men – against my uncle Christian? Alas, that I must call him my worst enemy!”

“She has the ascendancy which honour hath over infamy, and virtue over vice,” said Julian; “and to no human power but your father’s will she resign you, if you consent to choose her for your protectress. Come, then, with me, Alice; and – ”

Julian was interrupted by some one, who, laying an unceremonious hold of his cloak, pulled it with so much force as compelled him to stop and lay his hand on his sword. He turned at the same time, and, when he turned, beheld Fenella. The cheek of the mute glowed like fire; her eyes sparkled, and her lips were forcibly drawn together, as if she had difficulty to repress those wild screams which usually attended her agonies of passion, and which, uttered in the open street, must instantly have collected a crowd. As it was, her appearance was so singular, and her emotion so evident, that men gazed as they came on, and looked back after they had passed, at the singular vivacity of her gestures; while, holding Peveril’s cloak with one hand, she made with the other the most eager and imperious signs that he should leave Alice Bridgenorth and follow her. She touched the plume in her bonnet to remind him of the Earl – pointed to her heart, to imitate the Countess – raised her closed hand, as if to command him in their name – and next moment folded both, as if to supplicate him in her own; while pointing to Alice with an expression at once of angry and scornful derision, she waved her hand repeatedly and disdainfully, to intimate that Peveril ought to cast her off, as something undeserving his protection.

Frightened, she knew not why, at these wild gestures, Alice clung closer to Julian’s arm than she had at first dared to do; and this mark of confidence in his protection seemed to increase the passion of Fenella.

Julian was dreadfully embarrassed; his situation was sufficiently precarious, even before Fenella’s ungovernable passions threatened to ruin the only plan which he had been able to suggest. What she wanted with him – how far the fate of the Earl and Countess might depend on his following her, he could not even conjecture; but be the call how peremptory soever, he resolved not to comply with it until he had seen Alice placed in safety. In the meantime, he determined not to lose sight of Fenella; and disregarding her repeated, disdainful, and impetuous rejection of the hand which he offered her, he at length seemed so far to have soothed her, that she seized upon his right arm, and, as if despairing of his following her path, appeared reconciled to attend him on that which he himself should choose.

Thus, with a youthful female clinging to each arm, and both remarkably calculated to attract the public eye, though from very different reasons, Julian resolved to make the shortest road to the water-side, and there to take boat for Blackfriars, as the nearest point of landing to Newgate, where he concluded that Lance had already announced his arrival in London to Sir Geoffrey, then inhabiting that dismal region, and to his lady, who, so far as the jailer’s rigour permitted, shared and softened his imprisonment.

Julian’s embarrassment in passing Charing Cross and Northumberland House was so great as to excite the attention of the passengers; for he had to compose his steps so as to moderate the unequal and rapid pace of Fenella to the timid and faint progress of his left-hand companion; and while it would have been needless to address himself to the former, who could not comprehend him, he dared not speak himself to Alice, for fear of awakening into frenzy the jealousy, or at least the impatience of Fenella.

Many passengers looked at them with wonder, and some with smiles; but Julian remarked that there were two who never lost sight of them, and to whom his situation, and the demeanour of his companions, seemed to afford matter of undisguised merriment. These were young men, such as may be seen in the same precincts in the present day, allowing for the difference in the fashion of their apparel. They abounded in periwig, and fluttered with many hundred yards of ribbon, disposed in bow-knots upon their sleeves, their breeches, and their waistcoats, in the very extremity of the existing mode. A quantity of lace and embroidery made their habits rather fine than tasteful. In a word, they were dressed in that caricature of the fashion, which sometimes denotes a harebrained man of quality who has a mind to be distinguished as a fop of the first order, but is much more frequently in the disguise of those who desire to be esteemed men of rank on account of their dress, having no other pretension to the distinction.

These two gallants passed Peveril more than once, linked arm in arm, then sauntered, so as to oblige him to pass them in turn, laughing and whispering during these manoeuvres – staring broadly at Peveril and his female companions – and affording them, as they came into contact, none of those facilities of giving place which are required on such occasions by the ordinary rules of the pavé.

Peveril did not immediately observe their impertinence; but when it was too gross to escape his notice, his gall began to arise; and, in addition to all the other embarrassments of his situation, he had to combat the longing desire which he felt to cudgel handsomely the two coxcombs who seemed thus determined on insulting him. Patience and sufferance were indeed strongly imposed on him by circumstances; but at length it became scarcely possible to observe their dictates any longer.

When, for the third time, Julian found himself obliged, with his companions, to pass this troublesome brace of fops, they kept walking close behind him, speaking so loud as to be heard, and in a tone of perfect indifference whether he listened to them or not.

“This is bumpkin’s best luck,” said the taller of the two (who was indeed a man of remarkable size, alluding to the plainness of Peveril’s dress, which was scarce fit for the streets of London) – “Two such fine wenches, and under guard of a grey frock and an oaken riding-rod!”

“Nay, Puritan’s luck rather, and more than enough of it,” said his companion. “You may read Puritan in his pace and in his patience.”

“Right as a pint bumper, Tom,” said his friend – “Isschar is an ass that stoopeth between two burdens.”

“I have a mind to ease long-eared Laurence of one of his encumbrances,” said the shorter fellow. “That black-eyed sparkler looks as if she had a mind to run away from him.”

“Ay,” answered the taller, “and the blue-eyed trembler looks as if she would fall behind into my loving arms.”

At these words, Alice, holding still closer by Peveril’s arm than formerly, mended her pace almost to running, in order to escape from men whose language was so alarming; and Fenella walked hastily forward in the same manner, having perhaps caught, from the men’s gestures and demeanour, that apprehension which Alice had taken from their language.

Fearful of the consequences of a fray in the streets, which must necessarily separate him from these unprotected females, Peveril endeavoured to compound betwixt the prudence necessary for their protection and his own rising resentment; and as this troublesome pair of attendants endeavoured again to pass them close to Hungerford Stairs, he said to them with constrained calmness, “Gentlemen, I owe you something for the attention you have bestowed on the affairs of a stranger. If you have any pretension to the name I have given you, you will tell me where you are to be found.”

“And with what purpose,” said the taller of the two sneeringly, “does your most rustic gravity, or your most grave rusticity, require of us such information?”

So saying, they both faced about, in such a manner as to make it impossible for Julian to advance any farther.

“Make for the stairs, Alice,” he said; “I will be with you in an instant.” Then freeing himself with difficulty from the grasp of his companions, he cast his cloak hastily round his left arm, and said, sternly, to his opponents, “Will you give me your names, sirs; or will you be pleased to make way?”

“Not till we know for whom we are to give place,” said one of them.

“For one who will else teach you what you want – good manners,” said Peveril, and advanced as if to push between them.

They separated, but one of them stretched forth his foot before Peveril, as if he meant to trip him. The blood of his ancestors was already boiling within him; he struck the man on the face with the oaken rod which he had just sneered at, and throwing it from him, instantly unsheathed his sword. Both the others drew, and pushed at once; but he caught the point of the one rapier in his cloak, and parried the other thrust with his own weapon. He must have been less lucky in the second close, but a cry arose among the watermen, of “Shame, shame! two upon one!”

“They are men of the Duke of Buckingham’s,” said one fellow – “there’s no safe meddling with them.”

“They may be the devil’s men, if they will,” said an ancient Triton, flourishing his stretcher; “but I say fair play, and old England for ever; and, I say, knock the gold-laced puppies down, unless they will fight turn about with grey jerkin, like honest fellows. One down – t’other come on.”

The lower orders of London have in all times been remarkable for the delight which they have taken in club-law, or fist-law; and for the equity and impartiality with which they see it administered. The noble science of defence was then so generally known, that a bout at single rapier excited at that time as much interest and as little wonder as a boxing-match in our own days. The bystanders experienced in such affrays, presently formed a ring, within which Peveril and the taller and more forward of his antagonists were soon engaged in close combat with their swords, whilst the other, overawed by the spectators, was prevented from interfering.

“Well done the tall fellow!” – “Well thrust, long-legs!’ – “Huzza for two ells and a quarter!” were the sounds with which the fray was at first cheered; for Peveril’s opponent not only showed great activity and skill in fence, but had also a decided advantage, from the anxiety with which Julian looked out for Alice Bridgenorth; the care for whose safety diverted him in the beginning of the onset from that which he ought to have exclusively bestowed on the defence of his own life. A slight flesh-wound in the side at once punished, and warned him of, his inadvertence; when, turning his whole thoughts on the business in which he was engaged, and animated with anger against his impertinent intruder, the rencontre speedily began to assume another face, amidst cries of “Well done, grey jerkin!” – “Try the metal of his gold doublet!” – “Finely thrust!” – “Curiously parried!” – “There went another eyelet-hole to his broidered jerkin!” – “Fairly pinked, by G – d!” In applause, accompanying a successful and conclusive lunge, by which Peveril ran his gigantic antagonist through the body. He looked at his prostrate foe for a moment; then, recovering himself, called loudly to know what had become of the lady.

“Never mind the lady, if you be wise,” said one of the watermen; “the constable will be here in an instant. I’ll give your honour a cast across the water in a moment. It may be as much as your neck’s worth. Shall only charge a Jacobus.”

“You be d – d!” said one of his rivals in profession, “as your father was before you; for a Jacobus, I’ll set the gentleman into Alsatia, where neither bailiff nor constable dare trespass.”