There was much laughter, but Giles, gravely folding it up, laid it aside; and when we departed, in the gray light of dawn, he carried it off under his arm.
As for me, I had lost all the money I had with me, and had given my I O U for three hundred pounds.
Next day Lady Arabella was dropped in Berkeley Square by her Grace of Auchester. It was in the afternoon, and I was sitting in the Chinese room with Lady Hawkshaw and Daphne when Lady Arabella appeared.
“Well, Dicky,” she said,—a very offensive mode of addressing me,—“how do you stand your losses at play?” And, as I am a sinner, she plumped out the whole story of my play to Lady Hawkshaw and Daphne. As an officer and a gentleman, I scorned to retaliate by telling of the white satin petticoat. But vengeance was at hand. Just as she had finished, when Lady Hawkshaw was swelling with rage, like a toad, before opening her main batteries on me, and Daphne’s fair eyes were full of contempt for me, we heard a commotion outside. None of us could keep from going to the window, and the sight we saw threw Lady Arabella into a perfect tempest of angry tears.
A fife and drum were advancing up the street, playing with great vigor the old tune known as “Petticoats Loose.” Behind them marched, with the deepest gravity, a couple of marines, bearing aloft on their muskets a glittering shimmering thing that fluttered whitely in the air. It was Lady Arabella’s satin petticoat; and, halting before the door, the drum, with a great flourish, pounded the knocker. On the porter’s responding, the two marines handed the petticoat in with ceremony to him, directing him to convey it to the Lady Arabella Stormont, with the compliments of Lieutenant Giles Vernon of his Majesty’s service. This the man did, and was almost torn to pieces by her for doing so, though in what way he had offended, I know not to this day. It was a trifling thing, and made laughter for us all (including Lady Hawkshaw), except Arabella. She seemed to hate Giles with a more virulent hatred after that, and tried very hard to induce Lady Hawkshaw to forbid him the house, which, however, Lady Hawkshaw refused to do.
It was Lady Arabella’s satin petticoat. Page [92]
Neither Giles nor I had by any means forgotten our appointment to meet Captain Overton on the field of honor; and as the time approached for the meeting, Giles sent a very civil note to Overton, asking him to name a gentleman who would see me to arrange the preliminaries, for I would never have forgiven Giles had he chosen any one else. Overton responded, naming our old first lieutenant, Mr. Buxton, who happened to be in London then, and was an acquaintance of his. I believe Overton’s object in asking Mr. Buxton to act for him was the hope that the affair might be arranged; for from what I had heard of the deeply religious turn Overton had taken, I concluded the meeting was somewhat against his conscience. But the indignity of a blow in the face to an officer could not be easily wiped out without an exchange of shots. My principal was much disgusted when Mr. Buxton was named.
“I know how it will be, Dicky,” he growled. “You will sit like a great gaby, with your mouth open, imagining the tavern parlor to be the cockpit of the Ajax. Mr. Buxton will talk to you in his quarter-deck voice, and you will be so frightened that you will agree to use bird-shot at forty paces, provided Mr. Buxton proposes it.”
This I indignantly denied, and swore I would meet Mr. Buxton as man to man. Nevertheless, when we were sitting at the table in Mr. Buxton’s lodgings, I did very much as Giles had predicted. I forgot several things that I had wished to say, and said several things I wished I had forgotten. Mr. Buxton did not let me forget, however, that he had been my first lieutenant, and I was but a midshipman. He called my principal a hot-headed jackanapes before my very face, adding angrily,—