"Aren't you coming too, mamma?"
"No, miss, I am not coming; I must rest myself and compose my mind and soothe my feelings. Thomas, will you arrange my cushion."
Thomas produced it from under the seven capes of his surtout without perceptibly diminishing his girth.
Said Phyllida to Betty as they stepped out of the Maze, "For my part, I believe she only wanted to be rid of us in order to meet puffy old Moon or skimpy little Tarry."
And this supposition was perfectly true.
Chapter the Fifth
THE PUBLICK BREAKFAST
AT half-past twelve o'clock of the following day, masculine Curtain Wells began to arrive at the Town Hall determined to eat the health of General Sir Jeremy Dummer with all the vigour of an appetite unspoiled by a morsel of food since yesterday's supper. No procession was arranged by those responsible for the entertainment, but the habit of punctuality instilled by the Great little Beau secured an unrehearsed pageant. There was no marshalled order, but since everybody set out from his abode at the same time, the component populations of the place were compelled to affect a military method of progress.
It was quite unpremeditated and, therefore, the more impressive. The Town Hall designed by Sir John Vanbrugh had been erected by publick subscription to serve as a memorial to those gallant natives of Curtain Wells who fought and died under the Duke of Marlborough. That the aforesaid gallant natives were only three in number and in no case killed in action was no cooler to the furnace of civick gratitude kindled by the signing of the Peace of Utrecht. In their delight at the discomfiture of the quarrelsome Whigs, the citizens expressly stipulated there should be no hint of War and War's alarms in the construction of their Hall. There were to be no cannon eternally belching forth stony smoke, no image or superscription of Mars or Bellona. Greaves, bucklers, spears, culverins, swords, scimitars and grenades were forbidden by name. The central medallion of the pediment should enshrine Civick Unity.
So the reigning Mayor was represented in all the pomp of office grasping the hands of two equally, befurred and bechained Aldermen. It was an affecting combination of the real and the allegorical. A second medallion contained a voluminously draped and very substantial lady who with absent gaze spilled from a heavy Etruscan vase a large stream of petrified Chalybeate. Her far-away look might be attributed to an effort at ascertaining what a small Æsculapius was doing to a serpent on the summit of a diminutive Pelion. This was Health. Finally a third medallion held a peer in coronation robes thoughtfully regarding the front of St. James' Palace. A curved scroll announced this pensive aristocrat to be the representative of Society.
Civick Unity, Health, and Society—could any other personifications so justly convey the essential quality of Curtain Wells? And not a pike or arquebus to frighten them out of a rigid serenity.