Pisistratus. – And, pray, what business had you with that young woman, whom I take to be Miss Trevanion's maid? – and why should she come from Oxton to see you?
I had expected that these questions would confound Mr Peacock, but if there really were anything in them to cause embarrassment, the ci-devant actor was too practised in his profession to exhibit it. He merely smiled, and smoothing jauntily a very tumbled shirt-front, he said, "Oh sir, fie!
'Of this matter,
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made.'
If you must know my love affairs, that young woman is, as the vulgar say, my sweetheart."
"Your sweetheart!" I exclaimed, greatly relieved, and acknowledging at once the probability of the statement. "Yet," I added suspiciously – "yet, if so, why should she expect Mr Gower to write to her?"
"You're quick of hearing, sir; but though
'All adoration, duty, and observance;
All humbleness, and patience, and impatience,'
the young woman will not marry a livery servant – proud creature, very proud! – and Mr Gower, you see, knowing how it was, felt for me, and told her, if I may take such liberty with the Swan, that she should
– 'Never lie by Johnson's side
With an unquiet soul,'
for that he would get me a place in the Stamps! The silly girl said she would have it in black and white – as if Mr Gower would write to her!"
"And now, sir," continued Mr Peacock, with a simpler gravity, "you are at liberty, of course, to say what you please to my lady, but I hope you'll not try to take the bread out of my mouth because I wear a livery, and am fool enough to be in love with a waiting-woman – I, sir, who could have married ladies who have played the first parts in life – on the metropolitan stage."
I had nothing to say to these representations – they seemed plausible; and though at first I had suspected that the man had only resorted to the buffoonery of his quotations in order to gain time for invention, or to divert my notice from any flaw in his narrative, yet at the close, as the narrative seemed probable, so I was willing to believe that the buffoonery was merely characteristic. I contented myself therefore with asking —
"Where do you come from now?"
"From Mr Trevanion, in the country, with letters to Lady Ellinor?"
"Oh, and so the young woman knew you were coming to town?"
"Yes, sir; some days ago. Mr Trevanion told me the day I should have to start."
"And what do you and the young woman propose doing to-morrow, if there is no change of plan?"
Here I certainly thought there was a slight, scarce perceptible, alteration in Mr Peacock's countenance, but he answered readily, "To-morrow? a little assignation, if we can both get out; —
'Woo me, now I am in a holiday humour,
And like enough to consent.'
Swan again, sir!"
"Humph! – so then Mr Gower and Mr Vivian are the same person."
Peacock hesitated. "That's not my secret, sir; 'I am combined by a sacred vow.' You are too much the gentleman to peep through the blanket of the dark, and to ask me, who wear the whips and stripes – I mean the plush small-clothes and shoulder-knots – the secrets of another gent, to whom 'my services are bound.'"
How a man past thirty foils a man scarcely twenty! – what superiority the mere fact of living-on gives to the dullest dog! I bit my lip, and was silent.
"And," pursued Mr Peacock, "if you knew how the Mr Vivian you inquired after loves you"! When I told him incidentally, how a young gentleman had come behind the scenes to inquire after him, he made me describe you, and then said, quite mournfully, 'If ever I am what I hope to become, how happy I shall be to shake that kind hand once more,' – very words, sir! – honour bright!
'I think there's ne'er a man in Christendom
Can lesser hide his hate or love than he.'
And if Mr Vivian has some reason to keep himself concealed still – if his fortune or ruin depend on your not divulging his secret for awhile – I can't think you are the man he need fear. 'Pon my life, as the Swan touchingly exclaims. I dare swear that was a wish often on the Swan's lips in the privacy of his domestic life!"
'I wish I was as sure of a good dinner,'
My heart was softened, not by the pathos of the much profaned and desecrated Swan, but by Mr Peacock's unadorned repetition of Vivian's words; I turned my face from the sharp eyes of my companion – the cab now stopped at the foot of London Bridge.
I had no more to ask, yet still there was some uneasy curiosity in my mind, which I could hardly define to myself, – was it not jealousy? Vivian, so handsome and so daring —he at least might see the great heiress; Lady Ellinor perhaps thought of no danger there. But – I – I was a lover still, and – nay, such thoughts were folly indeed!
"My man," said I to the ex-comedian, "I neither wish to harm Mr Vivian (if I am so to call him,) nor you who imitate him in the variety of your names. But I tell you, fairly, that I do not like your being in Mr Trevanion's employment, and I advise you to get out of it as soon as possible. I say nothing more as yet, for I shall take time to consider well what you have told me."
With that I hastened away, and Mr Peacock continued his solitary journey over London Bridge.
CHAPTER LXXVIII
Amidst all that lacerated my heart, or tormented my thoughts, that eventful day, I felt at least one joyous emotion, when, on entering our little drawing-room, I found my uncle seated there.
The Captain had placed before him on the table a large Bible, borrowed from the landlady. He never travelled, to be sure, without his own Bible, but the print of that was small, and the Captain's eyes began to fail him at night. So this was a Bible with large type; and a candle was placed on either side of it; and the Captain leant his elbows on the table, and both his hands were tightly clasped upon his forehead – tightly, as if to shut out the tempter, and force his whole soul upon the page.
He sate, the image of iron courage; in every line of that rigid form there was resolution. "I will not listen to my heart; I will read the Book, and learn to suffer as becomes a Christian man."
There was such a pathos in the stern sufferer's attitude, that it spoke those words as plainly as if his lips had said them.
Old soldier! thou hast done a soldier's part in many a bloody field; but if I could make visible to the world thy brave soldier's soul, I would paint thee as I saw thee then! – Out on this tyro's hand!
At the movement I made, the Captain looked up, and the strife he had gone through was written upon his face.
"It has done me good," said he simply, and he closed the book.
I drew my chair near to him, and hung my arm over his shoulder.
"No cheering news then?" asked I in a whisper.
Roland shook his head, and gently laid his finger on his lips.
CHAPTER LXXIX
It was impossible for me to intrude upon Roland's thoughts, whatever their nature, with a detail of those circumstances which had roused in me a keen and anxious interest in things apart from his sorrow.
Yet, as "restless I roll'd around my weary bed," and revolved the renewal of Vivian's connexion with a man of character so equivocal as Peacock, the establishment of an able and unscrupulous tool of his own in the service of Trevanion, the care with which he had concealed from me his change of name, and his intimacy at the very house to which I