Charity was at the door, doing what every housemaid was then compelled to do, namely, pouring her slops into the gutter.
“Eh, Mestur Aubrey, is that yo’?” said she. “’Tis a month o’ Sundays sin’ we’ve seen you. You might come a bit oftener, I reckon, if you’d a mind. Stand out o’ th’ way a minute, do, while I teem these here slops out. There’s no end to folks’ idleness down this road. Here’s Marg’et Rumboll, at th’ back, been bidden by th’ third-borough to get hersen into service presently, under pain of a whipping, and Mary Quinton, up yon, to do th’ same within a month, at her peril. (Note 1.) I reckon, if I know aught of either Mall or Marg’et, they’ll both look for a place where th’ work’s put forth. Dun ye know o’ any such, Mestur Aubrey, up City way?”
Aubrey was not sufficiently sharp to notice the faint twinkle in Charity’s eyes, and the slight accent of sarcasm in her tone. Hans perceived both.
“I do not, Charity, but I dare be bound there are plenty,” said Aubrey, stepping delicately over the puddle which Charity had just created, so as to cause as little detriment as possible to his Spanish leather shoes and crimson silk stockings.
“Ay, very like there will. They’ll none suit you, Mestur ’Ans; you’re not one of yon sort. Have a care o’ th’ puddle, Mestur Aubrey, or you’ll mire your brave hose, and there’ll be wark for somebody.”
With which Parthian dart, Charity bore off her pail, and Aubrey and Hans went forward into the parlour, “Good even, my gracious Lord!” was the greeting with which the former was received. “Your Lordship’s visits be scarcer than the sun’s, and he has not shown his face none wist when. Marry, but I do believe I’ve seen that suit afore!”
“Of course you have, Aunt Temperance,” answered the nettled Aubrey. He was exceedingly put out. His evening was spoiled; he was deprived of his liberty, of his friends’ company, of a good dinner—for Mr Winter gave delightful little dinners, and Mrs Elizabeth More, the housewife at the Duck, was an unusually good cook. Moreover, he was tied down to what he contemptuously designated in his lofty mind “a parcel of women,” with the unacceptable and very unflattering sarcasms of Aunt Temperance by way of seasoning. It really was extraordinary, thought Mr Aubrey, that when women passed their fortieth milestone or thereabouts, they seemed to lose their respect for the nobler sex, and actually presumed to criticise them, especially the younger specimens of that interesting genus. Such women ought to be kept in their places, and (theoretically) he would see that they were. But when he came in contact with the obnoxious article in the person of Aunt Temperance, in some inscrutable manner, the young lord of creation never saw it. At the Duck, the company were making merry over Tom Rookwood’s satirical account of Aubrey’s discomfiture. For his company they cared little, and the only object they had for cultivating it was the consideration that he might be useful some day. Their conversation was all the freer without him, since all the rest were Papists.
Something, at that moment, was taking place elsewhere, with which the company at the Duck, and even Aubrey Louvaine, were not unconcerned. Lord Monteagle was entertaining friends to supper at his house at Hoxton, where he had not resided for some time previously. Just before the company sat down to table, a young footman left the house on an errand, returning a few minutes later. As he passed towards his master’s door, a man of “indifferent stature,” muffled in a cloak, and his face hidden by a slouched hat drawn down over the brow, suddenly presented himself from amongst the trees.
“Is your Lord within, and may a man have speech of him?” asked the apparition.
“His Lordship is now sitting down to supper,” was the answer.