“Consents!” To what else but his suit? Which, egged on by his noble uncle, has been pushing any time these ten years, since boy and girl Sir Percy and Lady Di had played, ridden, romped, quarreled as brother and sister together.
“Consents!”
It echoes and resounds in Her Ladyship’s head over and over again the night through, and ’tis quite of a piece with her mood that she seeks out Lady Diana when tea and cakes are passing, and, with sly looks, congratulates Her Ladyship on the happiness she has this night conferred on a very gallant gentleman not so many miles away!
And quite in Lady Diana’s line of reasoning, having heard from Kennaston that Sir Robin has come up to town highly commended to him by his sister, and that, although he had been sorely jealous and distraught at the said Sir Robin’s good fortune in the matter of the rescue of Her Ladyship, he still believed him to be head over heels in love with his twin, etc., etc., etc., and so, Her Ladyship argued, Kennaston had doubtless confided to the said Sir Robin such tokens of her favor as the said Lady Diana had that evening seen fit to manifest; never for a moment misdoubting that any other swain was in the supposed Robin’s mind any more than he was in her own!
“Consents!”
’Twas reverberating in Peg’s ears and a-knocking at her heart for the hundredth time, when, returned to the card-room, she learned that Mr. Brummell was inviting the company for the Thursday to his seat Ivy Dene. ’Twas to be a gentlemen’s party only; out on horseback, the twenty miles, leaving the White Horse at ten in the morning, with luncheon en route at the Merry Rabbit at Market Ossory; a look over the stables and paddocks on arriving at Ivy Dene,—a quiet game, maybe, and such a dinner as only, the Beau swore, his country cook could get up; with the ride back to town by the light of the near-full moon.
Lady Peggy was soon made aware that this festivity was solely in her honor, and succumbed to it as cheerfully as she might.
God keep her! All the while staring at the ribbon of her twin’s wig, a-longing to cast her arms about his neck and pray him cover her up in his wraprascal and fetch her home; vowing she’d run away from ’em all the next minute, but where? How? Which way could it be done so that capture, discovery, and humiliation would not follow? Peggy could contrive no method, and the girl was literally terrified both at the prospect before her and by the realization that easy as it had been to jump into man’s attire ’twas well-nigh impossible to get out of it again. Should she on returning to Peter’s Court lay off her satin suit, wig, and rapier, and resume her Levantine gown, hood, petticoats, patches, and reticule, how and of what hour of the day or night could she in safety leave the mansion and find her way unsuspected to the King’s Arms and the coach? ’Twould be out of the question; servants were up and about at all hours, and were a woman seen emerging from her room, what piece of scandal would not the next day ring from one end of the town to t’other.
With “consents” tattooing in her brain, My Lady recklessly put all the heart there was left in her into the present moment, lost a hundred pounds to Escombe with a fine grace; won five hundred with no more ado; laughed, drank a little wine, went home with her host at four in the morning, and fell heavily asleep.
At two of the afternoon the Beau usually held an informal levee attended by the more noted of the bucks and macaronis of the town; vastly entertaining half hours, wherein, while soundly abusing the newspapers for their being stuffed with lies, the company still eagerly devoured every scrap of gossip they contained; where the amount of frizz towering above Lady This’s brow was measured and scanned, the better appearance of Lady That in the new-fashioned gown discussed; and the horrid aspect of the Hon. Miss So and So’s toupee and her general resemblance to a malt-sack tied in the middle, talked over. This couplet and that comedy were torn to pieces by as many pretty wits as chanced to be present, while Tempers dressed his master’s wig in a corner and a footman and a negro page handed chocolate round in silver trays.