“Perfection,” says she, “is the pinnacle of womanhood. So long as I am perfect I don’t much care. ’Tis what I aim at. I would rather far be a complete fiend than an incomplete she-angel! For you know as well as I do, dear Bab, that every she-angel is of necessity an incomplete one.”
“What I wish to know,” I demanded, being well aware that I could not argue her out of this position, “is the exact number of my friends you have slandered. Do you know that my aunt was speaking of the very flower of the aristocracy? Now tell me instantly, how long has this gone on?”
“Oh! about a quarter of an hour,” says she, with an intolerable impudence, “and I spoke with the rapidity of a woman who is scandalous. Gad! I have played my part remarkably.”
“Oh, you wretch!” cries I, “and what is it that you’ve said?”
“Nay,” says she, “’tis not what I have said. ’Tis what I have not said. Let me see: the Marchioness of Quorn is bald as a toad when her wig is taken off; her ladyship of Chickenley is twenty years older than she looks, and hath a married daughter. The beautiful Miss Brandysnap drinks whisky-possets on the sly, and got the jumps the other morning. But that is a family affair, as the venerable rake her father had to be carried out of the Bodega every evening for a quarter of a century with nine pints of claret under his shirt. Then good Madam Salamander hath the fiery temper of old Pluto, and almost committed a manslaughter on her maid a week last Tuesday. There is a quantity of other things I’ve said, but I’ll not tarry to retail ’em.”
“Don’t,” I implored her, and took the stopper from my phial of aromatic vinegar. The Honourable Prudence Canticle was getting on my nerves.
CHAPTER X.
I PLAY CATHERINE TO MR. DARE’S PETRUCHIO.
It was our custom at Cleeby to sit down to the evening meal at seven o’clock. We held supper a function in our country day. Then it was that the Earl, my heroical papa, gout or no gout, would grace the table with his embroidered presence, and ogle his daughter, or his sister-in-law the ancient Caroline. This rather than his eyes, once so bright and fatal, should vainly spend their waning lustres on a stolid dish or an unresponsive spoon. The poor vamped-up old gentleman, with that monumental vanity of man that we women feed for our private ends, would not admit, even to himself, that though this dog had once enjoyed his day, that day now was over. He might be condemned to death; the wrinkles might strike through his powder; he might be toothless, doddering, with a weak action of the heart, and his age in a nice proportion to his crimes; he might be propt up in a back-strap and a pair of stays, the completest and most ghastly wreck in fact you ever set your eyes upon—that is before his man had wound him up and set him going for the day—but he would never admit that he was old, and that his vogue was buried with his youth. He would bow with depth and majesty as of yore, but with rather more of rheumatism; he would toast Venus just as often and sigh as profoundly as he did so; yet he never took the red wine to his shrivelled lips with quite that gusto that was his wont when he had blood and a pulse to grow inflamed in the pious ceremony. But he would tell a stranger confidentially that though people said his age was forty-eight, ’twas very wrong of ’em to talk like that, as his proper age was fifty. And I, who really am at times a tender-hearted wretch, would melt visibly every evening at his decrepit compliments and his senile quizzing glasses. What a fine, unsubduable old gentleman he was till the hour his wicked soul and his corrupt old carcase were consigned to the eternal care of that other fine old gentleman to whom he had as it were in many ways a sort of family resemblance.
“Prue,” says I, the moment we conspirators were assembled in my chamber, “this evening you have to undergo an Ordeal. We must prepare you for it, both in the body and the spirit, with great care.”
I hinted of its nature, and lightly, and not unlovingly touched in the character of that gallant heathen, my papa.