A Story

by William Makepeace Thackeray

possession of her sober senses, she would have seen in five minutes

  that her ancient lover was a ninny, and have left him with scorn;

  but she was under the charm of old recollections, and the sound of

  that silly voice was to her magical. As for Mr. Billings, he

  allowed his Excellency to continue his prattle; only frowning,

  yawning, cursing occasionally, but drinking continually.

  So the Count descanted at length upon the enormity of young

  Billings's early liaisons; and then he told his own, in the year

  four, with a burgomaster's daughter at Ratisbon, when he was in the

  Elector of Bavaria's service--then, after Blenheim, when he had come

  over to the Duke of Marlborough, when a physician's wife at Bonn

  poisoned herself for him, etc. etc.; of a piece with the story of

  the canoness, which has been recorded before. All the tales were

  true. A clever, ugly man every now and then is successful with the

  ladies; but a handsome fool is irresistible. Mrs. Cat listened and

  listened. Good heavens! she had heard all these tales before, and

  recollected the place and the time--how she was hemming a

  handkerchief for Max; who came round and kissed her, vowing that the

  physician's wife was nothing compared to her--how he was tired, and

  lying on the sofa, just come home from shooting. How handsome he

  looked! Cat thought he was only the handsomer now; and looked more

  grave and thoughtful, the dear fellow!

  The garden was filled with a vast deal of company of all kinds, and

  parties were passing every moment before the arbour where our trio

  sat. About half-an-hour after his Excellency had quitted his own

  box and party, the Rev. Mr. O'Flaherty came discreetly round, to

  examine the proceedings of his diplomatical chef. The lady in the

  mask was listening with all her might; Mr. Billings was drawing

  figures on the table with punch; and the Count talking incessantly.

  The Father Confessor listened for a moment; and then, with something

  resembling an oath, walked away to the entry of the gardens, where

  his Excellency's gilt coach, with three footmen, was waiting to

  carry him back to London. "Get me a chair, Joseph," said his

  Reverence, who infinitely preferred a seat gratis in the coach.

  "That fool," muttered he, "will not move for this hour." The

  reverend gentleman knew that, when the Count was on the subject of

  the physician's wife, his discourses were intolerably long; and took

  upon himself, therefore, to disappear, along with the rest of the

  Count's party; who procured other conveyances, and returned to their

  homes.

  After this quiet shadow had passed before the Count's box, many

  groups of persons passed and repassed; and among them was no other

  than Mrs. Polly Briggs, to whom we have been already introduced.

  Mrs. Polly was in company with one or two other ladies, and leaning

  on the arm of a gentleman with large shoulders and calves, a fierce

  cock to his hat, and a shabby genteel air. His name was Mr. Moffat,

  and his present occupation was that of doorkeeper at a gambling-

  house in Covent Garden; where, though he saw many thousands pass

  daily under his eyes, his own salary amounted to no more than

  four-and-sixpence weekly,--a sum quite insufficient to maintain him

  in the rank which he held.

  Mr. Moffat had, however, received some funds--amounting indeed, to a

  matter of twelve guineas--within the last month, and was treating

  Mrs. Briggs very generously to the concert. It may be as well to

  say that every one of the twelve guineas had come out of Mrs.

  Polly's own pocket; who, in return, had received them from Mr.

  Billings. And as the reader may remember that, on the day of

  Tommy's first interview with his father, he had previously paid a

  visit to Mrs. Briggs, having under his arm a pair of breeches, which

  Mrs. Briggs coveted--he should now be informed that she desired

  these breeches, not for pincushions, but for Mr. Moffat, who had

  long been in want of a pair.

  Having thus episodically narrated Mr. Moffat's history, let us state

  that he, his lady, and their friends, passed before the Count's

  arbour, joining in a melodious chorus to a song which one of the

  society, an actor of Betterton's, was singing:

  "'Tis my will, when I'm dead, that no tear shall be shed,

  No 'Hic jacet' be graved on my stone;

  But pour o'er my ashes a bottle of red,

  And say a good fellow is gone,

  My brave boys!

  And say a good fellow is gone."

  "My brave boys" was given with vast emphasis by the party; Mr.

  Moffat growling it in a rich bass, and Mrs. Briggs in a soaring

  treble. As to the notes, when quavering up to the skies, they

  excited various emotions among the people in the gardens. "Silence

  them blackguards!" shouted a barber, who was taking a pint of small

  beer along with his lady. "Stop that there infernal screeching!"

  said a couple of ladies, who were sipping ratafia in company with

  two pretty fellows.

  "Dang it, it's Polly!" said Mr. Tom Billings, bolting out of the

  box, and rushing towards the sweet-voiced Mrs. Briggs. When he

  reached her, which he did quickly, and made his arrival known by

  tipping Mrs. Briggs slightly on the waist, and suddenly bouncing

  down before her and her friend, both of the latter drew back

  somewhat startled.

  "Law, Mr. Billings!" says Mrs. Polly, rather coolly, "is it you?

  Who thought of seeing you here?"

  "Who's this here young feller?" says towering Mr. Moffat, with his

  bass voice.

  "It's Mr. Billings, cousin, a friend of mine," said Mrs. Polly,

  beseechingly.

  "Oh, cousin, if it's a friend of yours, he should know better how to

  conduct himself, that's all. Har you a dancing-master, young

  feller, that you cut them there capers before gentlemen?" growled

  Mr. Moffat; who hated Mr. Billings, for the excellent reason that he

  lived upon him.

  "Dancing-master be hanged!" said Mr. Billings, with becoming spirit:

  "if you call me dancing-master, I'll pull your nose."

  "What!" roared Mr. Moffat, "pull my nose? MY NOSE! I'll tell you

  what, my lad, if you durst move me, I'll cut your throat, curse me!"

  "Oh, Moffy--cousin, I mean--'tis a shame to treat the poor boy so.

  Go away, Tommy; do go away; my cousin's in liquor," whimpered Madam

  Briggs, who really thought that the great doorkeeper would put his

  threat into execution.

  "Tommy!" said Mr. Moffat, frowning horribly; "Tommy to me too? Dog,

  get out of my ssss---" SIGHT was the word which Mr. Moffat intended

  to utter; but he was interrupted; for, to the astonishment of his

  friends and himself, Mr. Billings did actually make a spring at the

  monster's nose, and caught it so firmly, that the latter could not

  finish his sentence.

  The operation was performed with amazing celerity; and, having

  concluded it, Mr. Billings sprang back, and whisked from out its

  sheath that new silver-hilted sword which his mamma had given him.

  "Now," said he, with a
fierce kind of calmness, "now for the

  throat-cutting, cousin: I'm your man!"

  How the brawl might have ended, no one can say, had the two

  gentlemen actually crossed swords; but Mrs. Polly, with a wonderful

  presence of mind, restored peace by exclaiming, "Hush, hush! the

  beaks, the beaks!" Upon which, with one common instinct, the whole

  party made a rush for the garden gates, and disappeared into the

  fields. Mrs. Briggs knew her company: there was something in the

  very name of a constable which sent them all a-flying.

  After running a reasonable time, Mr. Billings stopped. But the

  great Moffat was nowhere to be seen, and Polly Briggs had likewise

  vanished. Then Tom bethought him that he would go back to his

  mother; but, arriving at the gate of the gardens, was refused

  admittance, as he had not a shilling in his pocket. "I've left,"

  says Tommy, giving himself the airs of a gentleman, "some friends in

  the gardens. I'm with his Excellency the Bavarian henvy."

  "Then you had better go away with him," said the gate people.

  "But I tell you I left him there, in the grand circle, with a lady;

  and, what's more, in the dark walk, I have left a silver-hilted

  sword."

  "Oh, my Lord, I'll go and tell him then," cried one of the porters,

  "if you will wait."

  Mr. Billings seated himself on a post near the gate, and there

  consented to remain until the return of his messenger. The latter

  went straight to the dark walk, and found the sword, sure enough.

  But, instead of returning it to its owner this discourteous knight

  broke the trenchant blade at the hilt; and flinging the steel away,

  pocketed the baser silver metal, and lurked off by the private door

  consecrated to the waiters and fiddlers.

  In the meantime, Mr. Billings waited and waited. And what was the

  conversation of his worthy parents inside the garden? I cannot say;

  but one of the waiters declared that he had served the great foreign

  Count with two bowls of rack-punch, and some biscuits, in No. 3:

  that in the box with him were first a young gentleman, who went

  away, and a lady, splendidly dressed and masked: that when the lady

  and his Lordship were alone, she edged away to the further end of

  the table, and they had much talk: that at last, when his Grace had

  pressed her very much, she took off her mask and said, "Don't you

  know me now, Max?" that he cried out, "My own Catherine, thou art

  more beautiful than ever!" and wanted to kneel down and vow eternal

  love to her; but she begged him not to do so in a place where all

  the world would see: that then his Highness paid, and they left the

  gardens, the lady putting on her mask again.

  When they issued from the gardens, "Ho! Joseph la Rose, my coach!"

  shouted his Excellency, in rather a husky voice; and the men who had

  been waiting came up with the carriage. A young gentleman, who was

  dosing on one of the posts at the entry, woke up suddenly at the

  blaze of the torches and the noise of the footmen. The Count gave

  his arm to the lady in the mask, who slipped in; and he was

  whispering La Rose, when the lad who had been sleeping hit his

  Excellency on the shoulder, and said, "I say, Count, you can give ME

  a cast home too," and jumped into the coach.

  When Catherine saw her son, she threw herself into his arms, and

  kissed him with a burst of hysterical tears; of which Mr. Billings

  was at a loss to understand the meaning. The Count joined them,

  looking not a little disconcerted; and the pair were landed at their

  own door, where stood Mr. Hayes, in his nightcap, ready to receive

  them, and astounded at the splendour of the equipage in which his

  wife returned to him.

  CHAPTER XI. OF SOME DOMESTIC QUARRELS, AND THE CONSEQUENCE THEREOF.

  An ingenious magazine-writer, who lived in the time of Mr. Brock and

  the Duke of Marlborough, compared the latter gentleman's conduct in

  battle, when he

  "In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed,

  To fainting squadrons lent the timely aid;

  Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,

  And taught the doubtful battle where to rage"--

  Mr. Joseph Addison, I say, compared the Duke of Marlborough to an

  angel, who is sent by Divine command to chastise a guilty people--

  "And pleased his Master's orders to perform,

  Rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm."

  The first four of these novel lines touch off the Duke's disposition

  and genius to a tittle. He had a love for such scenes of strife:

  in the midst of them his spirit rose calm and supreme, soaring (like

  an angel or not, but anyway the compliment is a very pretty one) on

  the battle-clouds majestic, and causing to ebb or to flow the mighty

  tide of war.

  But as this famous simile might apply with equal propriety--to a bad

  angel as to a good one, it may in like manner be employed to

  illustrate small quarrels as well as great--a little family

  squabble, in which two or three people are engaged, as well as a

  vast national dispute, argued on each side by the roaring throats of

  five hundred angry cannon. The poet means, in fact, that the Duke

  of Marlborough had an immense genius for mischief.

  Our friend Brock, or Wood (whose actions we love to illustrate by

  the very handsomest similes), possessed this genius in common with

  his Grace; and was never so happy, or seen to so much advantage, as

  when he was employed in setting people by the ears. His spirits,

  usually dull, then rose into the utmost gaiety and good-humour.

  When the doubtful battle flagged, he by his art would instantly

  restore it. When, for instance, Tom's repulsed battalions of

  rhetoric fled from his mamma's fire, a few words of apt sneer or

  encouragement on Wood's part would bring the fight round again; or

  when Mr. Hayes's fainting squadrons of abuse broke upon the stubborn

  squares of Tom's bristling obstinacy, it was Wood's delight to rally

  the former, and bring him once more to the charge. A great share

  had this man in making those bad people worse. Many fierce words

  and bad passions, many falsehoods and knaveries on Tom's part, much

  bitterness, scorn, and jealousy on the part of Hayes and Catherine,

  might be attributed to this hoary old tempter, whose joy and

  occupation it was to raise and direct the domestic storms and

  whirlwinds of the family of which he was a member. And do not let

  us be accused of an undue propensity to use sounding words, because

  we compare three scoundrels in the Tyburn Road to so many armies,

  and Mr. Wood to a mighty field-marshal. My dear sir, when you have

  well studied the world--how supremely great the meanest thing in

  this world is, and how infinitely mean the greatest--I am mistaken

  if you do not make a strange and proper jumble of the sublime and

  the ridiculous, the lofty and the low. I have looked at the world,

  for my part, and come to the conclusion that I know not which is

  which.

  Well, then, on the night when Mrs Hayes, as recorded by us, had been

&n
bsp; to the Marylebone Gardens, Mr. Wood had found the sincerest

  enjoyment in plying her husband with drink; so that, when Catherine

  arrived at home, Mr. Hayes came forward to meet her in a manner

  which showed he was not only surly, but drunk. Tom stepped out of

  the coach first; and Hayes asked him, with an oath, where he had

  been? The oath Mr. Billings sternly flung back again (with another

  in its company), and at the same time refused to give his stepfather

  any sort of answer to his query.

  "The old man is drunk, mother," said he to Mrs. Hayes, as he handed

  that lady out of the coach (before leaving which she had to withdraw

  her hand rather violently from the grasp of the Count, who was

  inside). Hayes instantly showed the correctness of his surmise by

  slamming the door courageously in Tom's face, when he attempted to

  enter the house with his mother. And when Mrs. Catherine

  remonstrated, according to her wont, in a very angry and

  supercilious tone, Mr. Hayes replied with equal haughtiness, and a

  regular quarrel ensued.

  People were accustomed in those days to use much more simple and

  expressive terms of language than are now thought polite; and it

  would be dangerous to give, in this present year 1840, the exact

  words of reproach which passed between Hayes and his wife in 1726.

  Mr. Wood sat near, laughing his sides out. Mr. Hayes swore that his

  wife should not go abroad to tea-gardens in search of vile Popish

  noblemen; to which Mrs. Hayes replied, that Mr. Hayes was a pitiful,

  lying, sneaking cur, and that she would go where she pleased. Mr.

  Hayes rejoined that if she said much more he would take a stick to

  her. Mr. Wood whispered, "And serve her right." Mrs. Hayes

  thereupon swore she had stood his cowardly blows once or twice

  before, but that if ever he did so again, as sure as she was born,

  she would stab him. Mr. Wood said, "Curse me, but I like her

  spirit."

  Mr. Hayes took another line of argument, and said, "The neighbours

  would talk, madam."

  "Ay, that they will, no doubt," said Mr. Wood.

  "Then let them," said Catherine. "What do we care about the

  neighbours? Didn't the neighbours talk when you sent Widow Wilkins

  to gaol? Didn't the neighbours talk when you levied on poor old

  Thomson? You didn't mind THEN, Mr, Hayes."

  "Business, ma'am, is business; and if I did distrain on Thomson, and

  lock up Wilkins, I think you knew about it as much as I."

  "I'faith, I believe you're a pair," said Mr. Wood.

  "Pray, sir, keep your tongue to yourself. Your opinion isn't asked

  anyhow--no, nor your company wanted neither," cried Mrs. Catherine,

  with proper spirit.

  At which remark Mr. Wood only whistled.

  "I have asked this here gentleman to pass this evening along with

  me. We've been drinking together, ma'am."

  "That we have", said Mr. Wood, looking at Mrs. Cat with the most

  perfect good-humour.

  "I say, ma'am, that we've been a-drinking together; and when we've

  been a-drinking together, I say that a man is my friend. Doctor

  Wood is my friend, madam--the Reverend Doctor Wood. We've passed

  the evening in company, talking about politics, madam--politics and

  riddle-iddle-igion. We've not been flaunting in tea-gardens, and

  ogling the men."

  "It's a lie!" shrieked Mrs. Hayes. "I went with Tom--you know I

  did: the boy wouldn't let me rest till I promised to go."

  "Hang him, I hate him," said Mr. Hayes: "he's always in my way."

  "He's the only friend I have in the world, and the only being I care

  a pin for," said Catherine.

  "He's an impudent idle good-for-nothing scoundrel, and I hope to see

  him hanged!" shouted Mr. Hayes. "And pray, madam, whose carriage

  was that as you came home in? I warrant you paid something for the

  ride--ha, ha!"

  "Another lie!" screamed Cat, and clutched hold of a supper-knife.

  "Say it again, John Hayes, and, by ------ I'll do for you."