The Ladies": A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty Part 9

"You'll never be old and ugly. Them that remembers you will remember the loveliest thing G.o.d ever made when he took clay in his two hands."

"I don't know what she means," says Maria fretfully. "But sure some women are handsome till they die. Tell us when will the luck come, and how?"

"With the Golden Vanity and a woman with a man's name. And now leave me, my three queens, and I'll have a drop to warm me old bones and a whiff of the pipe to put the life in me. But don't forget the old woman when the great lords is kneeling before you and pouring the diamonds out of baskets before ye--and send the golden guineas, and--"

So she went on mumbling and muttering, and that was the first and last time the old hag told a fortune for love and not for money. She had not long to tell any, for she died next May, and not a soul to cry for her.

They stepped out into the suns.h.i.+ne, their heads high, and scarce a word to say to each other; for all three were thinking of the promises as light and glittering as soap bubbles. And Maria would not spare a word to Elizabeth, for not a woman but must walk after the heels of a d.u.c.h.ess, and she was all for leading.

"The Golden Vanity!" says Elizabeth. "Mama, what should that be? When I'm a d.u.c.h.ess--"

"I don't know, and most likely 'tis not worth knowing." Mrs. Gunning was angry. Her fine brows were drawn together. "Leave talking of d.u.c.h.esses, you silly fools, and go get the herrings for tea. I have left the children too long as it is."

So she marched down Britain Street like a queen, for all her burst shoe,-- a shabby street it was for such ladies,--and the two walked off to Fishmonger's Alley, and not a head but turned to look at them.

"Faith, they're G.o.ddesses and no mistake!" says gay Mr Councillor Egan, on the way from the Law Courts, with his mulberry face and his mulberry velvet coat. 'Twas to Lawyer Curran he said it, and in a small city like Dublin the name held, and the two were called the G.o.ddesses from that time.

Old Corrigan's words gave them courage for a while; but what can hold up against a diet of herrings day in and day out? And that was all the poor lady could give her family. What was she to do? Mr Gunning had took himself off to Castle Coote, his beggarly place in the country, where he could dice and drink in peace with the neighboring squireens, and live off claret and the skinny fowls that pecked about the avenue; and she had the weight of the children on her spare shoulders.

'Twas about this time that young Harry Lepel, the first man they met, in a way of speaking, fell in love with Elizabeth, the younger. The way it happened was this. She was walking down Mount Street with Maria, and she let fall her purse, and nothing in it but a pocket-piece to save her gentility. Harry was strolling off to my Lord Cappoquin's, from mounting guard at the Castle (for at that time his Lords.h.i.+p lived in Merrion Square); and indeed Mr Lepel was as fine a figure of a young man as a girl could wish to see, in his regimentals all laced with gold and his handsome head above them--a brown man with dark eyes. And seeing a young madam drop her purse, he stooped for it and, coming up behind them, saluted very stiff and offered it, and the two turned and looked him in the face.

'Tis certain a man might come up a thousand times behind a woman's back and not be startled as Harry Lepel was when he saw them; for there never was, nor will be, two such sisters. 'Twas like a battery suddenly unmasked; and what chance had the poor devil that was marching up to it like an innocent? The only thing he could do was to surrender at discretion--but to which lady? That was the trouble. Elizabeth Gunning settled it for him.

"I thank you, Sir," says she, with a smile that had ruined St. Anthony, for she was one that smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth--a golden suns.h.i.+ne that the heart opened to naturally.

He was stuttering and stammering. "Madam, I thank you for the happiness of touching anything your hand hath blessed."

'Twas sudden, I allow; but then, so too was her beauty. At all events, he dared no more, not having the courage, though all the will, to linger, and was turning off when a queer thing happened. But 'twas to be.

A drunken poltroon of a bargeman was coming up from Liffey-side, lurching and yawing like a Dutch hooker in a gale; and seeing them in a little bunch on the cobblestones, he took an anger at them in his wooden head, and, whether purposely or not I know not, but he elbowed up against Miss Maria and drove her into the dirty kennel; and she gave a faint scream, for her shoes were destroyed with the mud, and it was the only pair she had to her name. So what does Mr Lepel do but let drive straight from the shoulder at the offender, and in a minute the shoes and the lady were out of the kennel and the bargeman lying there as snug as snug, and the oaths he let out of him blackening the air like a flight of crows. So Mr Lepel, smiling with set lips like a picture, says to the girls:--

"Ladies, permit me to escort you to your home. 'Tis much to be regretted the streets are not safe for beauty unattended, though to be sure I have the happiness to profit by the circ.u.mstance. I trust it hath been no shock to your sensibility?"

And, indeed, tears had gathered in Elizabeth's eyes; but Maria was laughing like a Hebe, and looking up in his face--the blue-eyed lovely rogue!

"We thank you, Sir. 'Tis what our own brother had done had he been more than five. But while he is in the nursery, we must be obliged to kind strangers for protection."

"Madam, I would not willingly remain a stranger," says Mr Harry, very eager, and touching his c.o.c.ked hat. "Permit me to present myself for want of a better introducer. My name is Harry Lepel."

"I thank you, Sir. 'Twill be remembered with grat.i.tude. May we now bid you farewell?"

Miss Maria sank down, in a curtsey so well devised that it showed the littlest foot in the world, save only Elizabeth's. A fortunate bootmaker later was to make five guineas an afternoon by showing their shoes at a penny a head to the mob that gathered to stare at them; but that time was not yet come. Mr Lepel spoke earnestly:--

"Madam, you can't suppose--'tis not possible I can permit you to return alone after such an adventure. The sun sinks and the streets are mighty ill lit. If my company is disagreeable, I can walk ten paces behind; but otherwise--"

Here Elizabeth interposed, with a fine colour in her cheek:--

"The company of our protector can't be disagreeable--'tis a favour. But, Sir, I will be frank with you: we are in Dublin _incognita_; our lodging is not equal to our pretensions to birth; and in short--"

She hesitated, with her eyes dropped and the lashes like night upon her cheek. The crimson bow of her upper lip trembled--a seductive picture of troubled beauty. Anyhow it did Mr Harry's business for him. He could no more have tore himself away at that moment than he could have embraced the barge-man swearing blue murder at his feet.

"Madam, these are misfortunes that may happen to the greatest, and 'tis easy seen that in your case breeding and birth combine with--beauty. Is it indiscreet to ask the name of the ladies I have the honour to address?"

"'Tis very indiscreet," says Miss Maria, with one of her bright side-glances; "but yet--should we withhold it, sister?"

"Surely not from so kind a friend." Elizabeth spoke eagerly. "Our name, Sir, is Gunning, and we are granddaughters to the late Viscount Mayo and nieces to his present Lords.h.i.+p. And when I add that our parents have fallen into poverty, you will comprehend--"

Her voice paused on a silver note, which had the beginning of a sob; and when Elizabeth saddened, the world must sadden with her, so lovely were her long eyes and the drooping head. Pity poor Mr Harry! Talk of Scylla and Charybdis--he stood between the Sirens, and could he have halved his heart (and many men have that power), one half had gone to either charmer.

"Madam," says he tenderly, "I feel for your sorrows more than I can express. Might I but have the happiness to be presented to your mama; for 'tis the most prodigious circ.u.mstance--I am the son of Sir Francis Lepel of Tarrington in Yorks.h.i.+re, and I have heard him speak of my Lord Mayo many a time. His Lords.h.i.+p stood second to my grandfather in his famous duel with Lord Ayrs.h.i.+re thirty year since. My name will not be unknown.

Permit me--"

And again he saluted, very gallant, and the three proceeded down the street, the girls on thorns for thinking of the dingy rooms, and their mother down-at-heel, and the everlasting herrings sizzling on the grate, and Lucy and Kitty screaming for their supper. 'Twas thinking thus that Maria touched Elizabeth's arm, as much as to say: "Shall we let him go?"

For indeed these girls had a perfect language of signs between them, elaborated in the s.h.i.+fts and devices of their life; and Miss Maria, at least, was an accomplished little schemer. But Elizabeth responded not to the pinch.

"Why, Sir," says she sweetly, "the name is indeed familiar. Sitting on his Lords.h.i.+p's knee, often have I heard him discourse of Sir Francis. You are no stranger. Yet truth is best. We are poor, Mr Lepel. My sister and I are debarred from all the pleasures of our rank, and our only concern is how to lighten our mama's burden if we could. 'Tis this makes us hesitate, for we can't offer you the hospitality we would."

"Name it not, Madam, I entreat," says Mr Harry, trying to look into those too seductive eyes. "G.o.d forbid I should add to your anxieties. But had I the happiness to know your mama, whose beauty half Ireland knows by repute, sure I might be permitted to open the way to some pleasures. There is, for instance, a Birthnight ball to be celebrated at the Castle--"

"Sir, you are all goodness, but gentlemen understand little of the difficulties of poor young ladies of quality. How should they? We have no dresses fit for the eyes of his Excellency. Even shoes--"

She permitted a foot to appear beneath the edge of her petticoat and ambushed it again. But it had done its work.

"You tear my heart, Madam. But since that little marvel of a foot recalls Cinderella's, permit me to say that a fairy G.o.dmother smoothed the way for that young lady to a certain ball, and there she met the prince whose throne she afterwards shared."

"There are no fairies in Dublin, Sir." Her voice was like flowing honey, while the little foot so commended was bestowing a sharp kick upon the fair Maria, and thus it said:--

"Run ahead. Turn the corner and run like a lamp-lighter, and let mama know what is toward. Hide the herrings. Bundle the children to bed. Fling mama's Irish lace over her head. I can hold him fifteen minutes. Speed!"

'Tis much to be said in one kick, and it takes a woman to say and a woman to hear; but Miss Maria was a woman, though but eighteen. She smiled like Truth's self.

"Sister, if 'tis not disagreeable to you to spare me, I have the message to leave at Mrs Flaherty's, and will go forward and meet with you at our door. Excuse me, Mr Lepel. My sister is a slow walker and I a swift. I knew not 'twas so late."

Off went Miss Maria. Turning the corner, she picked up her petticoats and legged it along like a hare at dawn.

It may be thought that the acquaintance ripened in those fifteen minutes, which doubled into thirty. Elizabeth's step was slower, her voice more musical, even as a nightingale sings her sweetest to the moon. The shade of my Lord Mayo might hover about them to safeguard propriety, but Mr Harry drew as near as the rampart of the lady's hoop would permit, bending his head to catch her murmurs, and his nostrils inhaling the faint perfume of silken hair rolled back from the whitest brow in the world. They made a pair that many would have remarked, but for the ill-lit streets.

Maria awaited them at the shabby door in Britain Street.

"I would not go in, sister, lest mama should scold me for leaving you; and indeed I am but just arrived," says she demurely. And since she had not entered, 'twas singular how neat was the appearance of that dingy room; for 'twas dingy, do what you would.

The fire burned brightly, and if there was a delicate odour of herrings and onions, 'twas the worst could be said, for none were to be seen.

Indeed, a rich perfume fought with it, as if a hasty hand had dashed the odours of Araby here and there to discourage the herrings. A large velvet cloak, the worse for wear, disguised the rents of the sofa, whereon sat Mrs Gunning, majestic in another of faded purple satin, beneath which her dress remained conjectural. A n.o.ble square of Limerick point was flung over her head and hung veil-like by each ear; and, indeed, with the little cherub Lucy at her feet, she might have sat for an aging Madonna.

Kitty was bundled off to the camp-bed in the back room; and sure the picture was homelike, if you studied the handsome lady rather than the ragged chairs. 'Twas the best they could do, poor souls, in fifteen minutes, and wonderful in the time. 'Tis women for quick thinking and quick acting where men are concerned; and, indeed, the look of astonishment Mrs Gunning gave as the three entered was inimitable, though already she had every particular set down in her mind. She swept the stateliest curtsey, and cast a rebuking maternal eye on her daughters, ere she addressed Mr Lepel.

But, when explanations were made, how did her brow clear and a fair-weather smile efface the frost! She welcomed him with cordial kindness, with such reminiscences of his family as warmed his heart; and though no hospitality was offered save one,--a bottle of generous claret in a silver cup enriched with the Mayo arms,--'twas given with such good-will, and served by so lovely a cup-bearer, the fair Maria, that the man does not breathe but must feel it worthy of the three ladies who tendered it. He toasted them one and all in turn, and if his bow to Elizabeth was a little lower, that circ.u.mstance did not displease Mrs Gunning.