"No, Kit," says he, very resolutely, "I'll not. I am resolved I won't go there till to-morrow, for this is no hour to be a-calling on ladies, and her husband being away 'twill look as if we had ordered it of purpose. Besides, if Moll's in trouble, how am I to pretend I know nothing of the matter and care less, and this Mother Butterby and a parcel of sly, observant servants about to surprise one at any moment? Say no more--'tis useless--for I won't be persuaded against my judgment."
"As you will," says I.
"There's another reason, if other's needed," says he, "and that's this plaguey thirst of mine, which seizes me when I'm doleful or joyful, with a force there's no resisting. And chiefly it seizes me in the later part of the day; therefore, I'd have you take me to the Court to-morrow morning betimes, ere it's at its worst. My throat's like any limekiln for dryness now; so do pray, Kit, fasten the door snug, and give me a mug of ale."
This ended our discussion; but, as it was necessary I should give some reason for not supping with Moll, I left Dawson with a bottle, and went up to the house to find Moll. There I learnt that she was still in her chamber, and sleeping, as Mrs. Butterby believed; so I bade the good woman tell her mistress when she awoke that Captain Evans had come to spend the night with me, and he would call to pay her his devoirs the next morning.
Here, that nothing may be unaccounted for in the sequence of events, I must depart from my train of present observation to speak from after-knowledge.
I have said that when Moll started forward, as if to overtake her husband, she suddenly stopped as if confronted by some menacing spectre. And this indeed was the case; for at that moment there appeared to her heated imagination (for no living soul was there) a little, bent old woman, clothed in a single white garment of Moorish fashion, and Moll knew that she was Mrs. Godwin (though seeing her now for the first time), come from Barbary to claim her own, and separate Moll from the husband she had won by fraud.
She stood there (says Moll) within her gates, with raised hand and a most bitter, unforgiving look upon her wasted face, barring the way by which Moll might regain her husband; and as the poor wife halted, trembling in dreadful awe, the old woman advanced with the sure foot of right and justice. What reproach she had to make, what malediction to pronounce, Moll dared not stay to hear, but turning her back fled to the house, where, gaining her chamber, she locked the door, and flung herself upon her husband's bed; and in this last dear refuge, shutting her eyes, clasping her ears, as if by dulling her senses to escape the phantom, she lay in a convulsion of terror for the mere dread that such a thing might be.
Then, at the thought that she might never again be enfolded here in her husband's arms, an agony of grief succeeded her fit of maddening fear, and she wept till her mind grew calm from sheer exhaustion. And so, little by little, as her courage revived, she began to reason with herself as how 'twas the least likely thing in the world that if Mrs. Godwin were in England, she should come to the Court unattended and in her Moorish clothes; and then, seeing the folly of abandoning herself to a foolish fancy, she rose, washed the tears from her face, and set herself to find some occupation to distract her thoughts. And what employment is nearer to her thoughts or dearer to her heart than making things straight for her husband; so she goes into the next room where he worked, and falls to washing his brushes, cleaning his paint-board, and putting all things in order against his return, that he may lose no time in setting to work at another picture. And at dinner time, finding her face still disfigured with her late emotions and ashamed of her late folly, she bids her maid bring a snack to her room, under the pretence that she feels unwell. This meal she eats, still working in her husband's room; for one improvement prompting another, she finds plenty to do there: now bethinking her that the hangings of her own private room (being handsomer) will look better on these walls, whereas t'others are more fit for hers, where they are less seen; that this corner looks naked, and will look better for her little French table standing there, with a china image atop, and so forth. Thus, then, did she devote her time till sundown, whereabouts Mrs. Butterby raps at her door to know if she will have a cup of warm caudle to comfort her, at the same time telling her that Mr. Hopkins will not sup with her, as he has Captain Evans for his guest at the lodge.
And now Moll, by that natural succession of extremes which seems to be a governing law of nature (as the flow the ebb, the calm the storm, day the night, etc.), was not less elated than she had been depressed in the early part of the day,--but still, I take it, in a nervous, excitable condition. And hearing her father, whom she has not seen so long, is here, a thousand mad projects enter her lively imagination. So, when Mrs. Butterby, after the refusal of her warm caudle, proposes she shall bring Madam a tray of victuals, that she may pick something in bed, Moll, stifling a merry thought, asks, in a feeble voice, what there is in the larder.
"Why, Madam," says Mrs. Butterby, from the outside, "there's the partridges you did not eat at breakfast, there's a cold pigeon pasty and a nice fresh ham, and a lovely hasty pudding I made with my own hands, in the pot."