Seen in an Old Mirror. A novel

Front matter

THE GARDEN OF ST. ANN'S COURT, MR. ZINZAN OF BATH; OR, SEEN IN AN OLD MIRROR. A NOVEL. BY MARY DEANE. LONDON: A. D. INNES AND CO., Late WALTER SMITH AND INNES, 31, 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1891. Richard Clay & Sons, Limited. London & Bungav. THIS NEW EDITION OF A STORY OF BATH IN THE DAYS OF GEORGE II. Is BeMcatefc TO EDMOND R. WODEHOUSE, ESQ., M.P., WHOSE INTEREST IN ALL THAT CONCERNS THE ANCIENT CITY INCLUDES THE PAST AS WELL AS THE PRESENT; WITH THE WISH, ON THE PART OF THE WRITER, THAT HE MAY LONG CONTINUE TO REPRESENT IT AS ITS SENIOR MEMBER. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE i. Through the City Gate ... ... ... ... ... ... i n. Under Bauble Sway ... ... ... ... ... ... 6 m. A Bath a la Mode ... ... ... ... ... ... 12 iv. Prince Charming ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 17 v. Dolly Dances Her First Minuet ... ... ... ... 24 vi.

Chapter I Through The City Gate

ROM beneath the rustling brown mantle of dead leaves shed from a hundred and seventy autumns, comes back a bright August to tell one of those thousand stories that bloom and fade with every year. " The Bath" of George the Second's time was still a mere collection of crooked streets and alleys, though, if we may trust to tradition, Fashion had come to be boiled in its hot springs, and refresh her yellow skin and haggard eyes with steaming draughts, from King Bladud's time downwards. Under the mean shops and lanes ofthe city lay mosaic pavements and Roman villas and stone coffins, telling of the days B when Roman legionaries vvere quartered in "Aquæ Solis." The mark of the invaders remained, while every trace of the health and pleasure seekers of later years had vanished along the green valley of the Avon.

Autumn was a gay time for Bath in the reigns of the Georges, and crowds of notabilities flocked through its four gateways to fill their own houses or the indifferent lodgings prepared for them. Few of the latter had as yet soared above coarse dimity and fustian furniture, " which the matrons and maids of the city flower between the seasons." Cane and rush-bottomed chairs were deemed good enough to receive creakingly the weight of noble dowagers, lords, and big-wigs ; carpetless floors, browned with soot and small-beer, echoed the tap of heels the circumference of a sixpence, and vvere swept by trains of silk and satin, stiff, and glistening with unalloyed richness. Many of these poor dwellings of greatness look out upon the old Abbey, whose western front is so blocked up with houses, that Oliver King's headless angels, tumbling recklessly down the dream ladders, had been more than once mistaken for toads.

The city crouches at the feet cf the great surrounding hills, up whose steeps it has not yet stretched itself in white crescents, gemming the wooded heights like pearls in dark hair. The Avon runs clear and low, reflecting the passing clouds, as yet unpolluted by poisonous factory dyes. The meadows along its banks are dotted of an afternoon with bright groups of stragglers from the gravel walks where the band plays. On the " Rampiers " the strollers are busily discussing new arrivals, new scandals, one another's fortunes, failures, good luck at cards, and bad taste in dress. The old flat-bottomed ferry boat is continually in request with those who prefer enjoying each other's company in the quiet meadows, away from the cold eyes and bitter tongues of the crowd. It made a pretty little picture as the withered old ferry-man pulled it slowly across the stream, with its brilliant freight.

There was no lack of folly anywhere, but among the young people in the green fields it was, perhaps, less baleful than among the life-long toilers of the world assembled on the terraces, whose capabilities of love and generosity seemed hopelessly encrusted with selfishness. Theirs was the vulgar-mindedness, the hard polish of flippant, clever shallowness peculiar to one development of mind in the eighteenth century. The thin crust said to lie between Bath and the pit of fire and brimstone might well have quivered and cracked beneath the multitude of gilded heels which pressed it. If angels there were, they did indeed walk unawares. Through the City Gate. 3 It was not a true, nor a noble age, but one of tinsel and false affect ation ; men of the upper classes vvere for the greater part brutal, or effeminate, or wise with a poor imitation of the wisdom of heathen philosophers ; religion was lying in a deadly lethargy ; the hedges of the vineyard were broken down ; neither upon their buildings, their poetry, their pictures, or their lives, was to be found the stamp of truth, purity, and nobility.

Now and again arose some coarse, bitter, mocking protest against the rottenness ofthe age ; and yet the nation was not cankered to the core, like its neighbour over the water, and would one day right itself again, shaking off the hideous mask, without the agony and shame of.a revolution. This particular autumn in Bath was supposed to be a good season ; the weather was remarkably fine, so was the company ; the much-used furniture got rubbed up ; the doctors were In bland expectation of many fees; the assembly houses began to prepare their lists of entertainments. If faithfully followed out, the programme for the day left little to be desired among those who came tired of their own company, for every hour was provided for. At one time the nobility had kept themselves apart from the ordinary throng of country gentlemen and military and naval officers, but times had changed, and Bath was a small place, and now they frequented the same room, drank from the same pump, and strolled upon the same terraces.

The Princess Amelia, or Emily, as she was indifferently called, was honouring the city with her presence ; she had been met at the north gate by a hundred armed young men, and a hundred amazons, and escorted in high pomp, and amid the clangour of abbey bells, and the cheers of the populace, who vvere always liable to a craze at the sight of royalty, to her house in Westgate Street. Nash, great monarch of Bath, received her regally ; his dashing chariot and brilliant outriders vvere in attendance wherever she went, competing with her in splendour, and outdoing her in eccentricity. Poor Beau Nash ! he served the world faithfully, and its rewards were poverty and neglect ; but if he has left the reputation of a king of folly, there stands a hospital as a memorial of his benevolence ; starving wretches blessed his open heart and hand, and his little nook of society had to thank him for the decency and order which reigned among those who owned no sway but his.

Wisdom came down from Westminster, Wit from the coffee-houses, Fashion from St. James's, and Nash, from his house in St. John's Court, ruled them all. Along the road that ran into Bath on the east side under craggy cliffs, while the sun sank lower and lower into rising mists, came a lumbering travelling-coach, well attended, and containing three persons, Lady Chesney, her brother Mr. Bellingham, and her daughter Dolly, from Spincourt, in Hampshire. It was the first visit of the young lady, and all the hours in which she had been crowded up in the heavy coach her thoughts had been delight fully busy with the beautiful things she was going to see — old beaus and belles, for instance, drinking the waters in wigs and patches, and narrow, dirty streets — instead of stretches of mossy turf, gemmed thick with dewdrops, tangles of creepers flushed by August sun, and crowds of pigeons, and all manner of pets, flocking at her call.

She had been counting the hours until her new fairyland should burst upon her, though just at the moment of quitting her dearly-loved home her heart had suddenly failed her. Mr. Bellingham had complained a good deal of the jolting and cramp of the long journey, but he cheered up when they passed beneath the gate decorated by the meagre statue of the swineherd prince, in reference to which was written — Ungrateful city, whose unworthy care Cannot afford King Bladud clothes to wear ! " and was radiant when, alighting in the Abbey Listen, he welcomed his sister and niece to that most delectable and distinguished spot of earth, " The Bath." The Abbey bells deafened them, and the city waits kept them awake that night with the utmost attention, for both of which com pliments Mr. Bellingham paid next morning with complete satisfaction.

In the present generation they vvere little known to. " the world," but the time had been when the old gentleman, whose shaky gait still preserved some of its ancient stateliness, had fluttered his hour with the giddiest of them all. Pall Mall and St. James's had forgotten him now, however, and he shook his be-wigged head, and raised his fine eyebrows in melancholy disdain over the German dynasty sitting in the place of those old royal Stuarts, to whom he clung with traditional loyalty. He had never shone as a star of any great magnitude in their cause, nor had the exiled race any special reason for congratulating themselves upon his adherence ; but Bellinghams had fought at Naseby, spilt their blood on Marston Moor, and died at Worcester in their cause ; and the few years he had passed at St. Gcrmains he had been treated with respect and confidence.

Concerning Through the City Gate. 5 those years he was ever silent, and soon flitted back to spend the remainder of his life at his place at Spincourt, cheered by the society of his sister and niece. With all his foibles he carried into the country a fund of intelligence and information singular among the scattered rustic gentry. In the lifetime of her husband Lady Chesney had been much about court, but since his death she had devoted herself to the education of her daughter in great retirement. When she came to Bath the neighbourhood missed their Lady Bountiful, but there were many who stood in awe of her as a fine town-bred dame, and only regretted her absence as causing the house to be shut up. " She must be learned, forsooth," they said, " and is not content that her daughter should have the useful proper training of other folks' children, as handsome and well-born as any Chesney, but must cram her silly head with book-learning, instead of bustling her about the still room and dairy, which was the only way of curing girls of whimsies."

Poor Dolly, her book-learning was limited enough, if they had only known it, and she was not altogether deficient in household knowledge, but her real sin was her unconscious refinement. Then the mothers of awkward giggling misses would also prognosticate that when Dame Chesney thought of marrying Dolly she would find out her mistake, " for men did not want wives talking about books that, what with their sports and their property, they had no time to look into themselves." Lady Chesney was calmly unconcerned by these opinions ; rather than that Dolly should be the wife of one of those ignorant, boorish squires, no better than their own gamekeepers, she should braid St. Katharine's hair. But seriously she did not intend to spoil her daughter's prospects by burying her in the country, and had kept up a correspondence with all her old friends who had eligible sons, with a view to Dolly's future establish ment.

Many a night she had lain awake revolving in her mind some glow ing description of these young gentlemen ; and at length it so happened that the two of whom she was disposed to think most favourably were in Bath at the same time. A timely touch of rheumatism, and an invitation from her brother, decided her, and the result was this autumnal visit to Bath. Mr. Bellingham opened the campaign by an earl)- visit to the pump house, where he added his party to the list of arrivals, and had the pleasure of taking a glass of warm water flavoured with inky steel pens, in company with several old friends, well primed with the latest gossip.

Chapter II. Under Bauble Sway

HEN Dolly awoke on that first morning it was to a new epoch in her existence. Before her spread that mysterious future in which all delightful things were possible. Bath was as it were the battle-field upon which the ycung knight was to win his spurs, the scroll upon which future happiness might be emblazoned. Never again would the same ignorant, innocent, careless Dolly Chesney return to the old childish pleasures, the simple monotonous life that closed its pages for ever when she took her last look backward to the glades of Spincourt. Perhaps it was a blind presentiment of this which struck a chord of half regretful melancholy in her mind as she turned away. At ten o'clock the}' started in the cumbrous family coach to see the town, which to Dolly was truly a wonderful sight. If she had not been conscious that her mother's Under Bauble Sway. 7 eye was upon her she certainly would have not restrained her feelings and behaved as well as she did.

They subscribed to the ladies' reading-room, gazed into all the shops, noted the celebrities whom Mr. Bellingham was careful to point out, and went down W^estgate Street to admire the exterior of Princess Amelia's house. Then they drove into the ring, a miniature of that in Hyde Park ; and had the pleasure of bowing to her buxom Royal Highness, and of recognizing one or two friends. But here Lady Chesney was destined to receive a great shock. She had no notion of a lady being more of a horsewoman than would enable her to ride pillion behind her husband on a sober-paced beast to church or market town ; and lo ! here were young women prancing about on horseback, clad in broad-tailed coats with lappets, and low-crowned felt hats after the fashion of men ! She looked at Dolly, hoping that she, too, was shocked at this unfeminine abomination, and was alarmed to see her watching with looks of unfeigned admiration.

" There is nothing sadder," said Lady Chesney, decisively, " than to see young women forget what is due to themselves. What are the mothers of these masculine young females thinking of, I wonder, that such proceedings should be countenanced ?" Then Dolly knew that she ought to have been scandalized and was not ; and they speedily drove away, though Mr. Bellingham tried to speak a word in behalf of the culprits ; for where beauty and fashion were concerned he was most lenient. With the inclination to find much to see and admire the time passed swiftly, and Dolly was sorry when they had to return home. She stationed herself at the window with her prim bit of tent-stitch in her hand, as an excuse for watching all that was passing outside. Gaily-painted sedan chairs were being carried about by powdered footmen, or hired men with long coat tails buttoned back, and faces not of the soberest description.

Street cries of every ear-torturing nature came saintly from the market place ; and sometimes a market-woman bustled along with two immense baskets, wearing the frilled white cap and black beaver hat covered with wide satin bows, which might still have been seen some hundred years later. At the end of the street she could hear the barking, yelping, and snapping of three hundred crooked-leg turnspit dogs, toilers in the kitchens of the city, which were in the habit of congregating daily in the market-place for a little bragging, complaining, and comparing notes among friends concerning, no doubt, the joints they had been laboriously turning that morning. Dolly's ideas vvere being enlarged every minute, but something yet remained. There flashed into the Abbey Listen, while the turnspits were still engaging her attention, a brilliant gilt chariot on high wheels, with six fine greys in showy caparison, accompanied by two outriders in yellow and scarlet, and preceded by one blowing a horn.

Dolly begged her mother to come and see the sight. '"Tis doubtless Mr. Nash, daughter, the King of Bath," said Lady Chesney. " A strange fashion of going abroad, truly ! Come away from the window, or he will think you a mere country-bred lass." " I should have supposed that only His Majesty himself would go about in so fine a mode," said Dolly. In a few minutes Mr. Nash entered to pay his respects to her ladyship. His costume matched his equipage ; it was outri to the last degree. He welcomed the ladies with effusion to his little kingdom, and scattered perfumed snuff on all sides. Dolly soon found that Bath was the most important place in the world, and Nash the most important personage in Bath. Lady Chesney began to feel herself much behind the world ; her visitor took the burden of the conversation upon himself; a bow in the right place and general acquiescence was all that was needed on her part.

He talked vauntingly of Wood's new buildings, sketched the programme for the week, hoped he should have the felicity of securing Miss Chesney's hand for the second minuet at the Tuesday ball, mentioned airily that he opened the ball with the princess on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but that he devoted the second dance to the last young lady of quality introduced, as he thought it an agreeable mode of bringing her before the world ; ran through the names of the celebrities now in Bath, and inquired anxiously if they had seen Her Royal Highness yet, and appeared relieved to find that they had. " I esteem the Abbey Listen the most eligible place of residence in the city," continued the beau ; " it has but one drawback, and that is that it is in the opposite direction to Westgate Street ; you lose that aroma which pervades the precincts of royalty, my dear madam ; but even that is of no vital importance, for such is the affability of Her Royal Highness, that she honours all our assemblies, and is to be seen in the Cross Bath at nine every morning.

You have not yet taken your amiable and lovely daughter to the bath, I imagine, madam ? " Under Bauble Sway. 9 " No, sir," said Lady Chesney ; " I propose to do so to-morrow." " Lady Chesney will do all that is desirable. In Lady Chesney and Miss Chesney I see the most attractive adornments of our city without question. I can answer for the satisfaction with which the princess will welcome her ladyship and her daughter." Lady Chesney was no match for His Majesty in compliments, she had been educated in a stiffer school, and a speech from her was ponder ous and elaborate like a state coach, so that before it had fairly revolved in her mind, Nash had thrown off half a dozen, which crossed it on the road like so many light curricles. " His time, it was scarcely his own — innumerable demands, her lady ship would understand — her quick grasp of mind embraced the whole at a glance — public man.

One word. There had been annoyances with hired sedans — men not sober — of course her ladyship would hire her own bearers — there happened to be fewer pink liveries in Bath than any others — but doubtless her ladyship would prefer her family livery — had unaccountably forgotten the colour of the Chesney armorial bearings," and so saying, Mr. Nash was wafted from the room in a cloud of lavender scent, hair powder, and aromatic snuff, with a profusion of bows, which Lady Chesney answered by as many slow and stately, curtsys as she could get through before the door closed upon her visitor. "Ahem!" said Lady Chesney, "I have been a long time out of the world." Mr. Bellingham joined them at the five o'clock tea-table, and they ate Sally Lunn from the basket of the original of that name. The brother and sister were cheerful and talkative in spite of buckram and the old school, and Dolly was encouraged to speak when she was spoken to, and permitted to ask one or two questions, which Mr. Bellingham in his character of a fashionable beau was delighted to answer.

" And now, my dear niece," he said, with one of his imposing bows, " now I shall have the pleasure of introducing you to the gay scene of St. Mary's rampier." It was verging towards sunset when the party reached the promenade where the band was playing, and looked round upon their fellow pleasure-seekers. The world of Bath, sifted from the world of London, was dazzling itself, tapping its gold snuff-box, uttering its witticisms, and spreading its peacock-tail in the splendid sunshine, which poured alike over those foolish heads, over the glittering river beyond the walls, the green slopes, the grey gabled houses, and the deep foliage of Beechen Cliff, standing boldly out behind the Abbey. It was occasionally noticed by some fair one, with a pettish exclamation, when she was forced to half close the fine orbs which she had just been assured far outshone the lights ofthe firmament.

Dazzled more by the faces than the sun, Dolly walked shrinkingly along by her mamma's side. In all her seventeen years she had never seen half so many fine people, nor had she ever been so stared at before. Lady Chesney's dignity was proof against the inquisitive batteiy of eyes. She was tall, black-eyed, thin-lipped, with an aquiline nose, and had, no doubt, been a beauty, and a toast, in her day. The style of her dress was a generation behind the present, but that was no uncommon sight. Dolly's sweet oval face came like a breath of pure country air across the gaudy, glittering throng : as the scent of jasmine brings back old summer days, this girl brought back a glimpse of a lost spring-time to some who followed her with surprised wistfulness. She felt terribly strange among them all, looking at them as she would at so many bits of china or strange toys.

Conspicuous among the rest, a party came pranking along headed by My Lady Di Buckler. Lady Di is not a widow ; but few people know that the gouty old man, with the cross-grained face, and feet in flannel, drawn about in a chair, is her husband. Her heels were the highest, her hooped petticoat the shortest present ; her party was composed of the gaudiest bodies and emptiest heads in Bath. They talked loudly, and laughed much ; they had some wit among them, but not of the choicest description. They vvere the outcome of an artificial civilization, wherein vulgar ignorance and irreligion vvere rampant. They included a young man of very striking face and figure, with a frank and almost excusable air of self-satisfaction, which is so much more easily pardoned than gloomy self-conceit. Even Lady Chesney, glancing at him, hoped that her future son-in-law might resemble this very fine fellow.

He carried his powdered head high, and was dressed with a sort of careless extravagance, wearing his splendid diamond buckles, and superb old lace, and carrying his snuff box (a present from the Czar) with an unconscious grace that was very winning in feminine eyes. His fortunes were fluctuating, as a gambler's are apt to be, but his popularity was unwavering. London knew him in ils choicest circles ; Bath adored his impudence : he dashed through its Under Bauble Sway. 1 1 streets in the newest of curricles, and rode as straight to hounds as any man in Somersetshire. Ladies called him Apollo, and even those hard hearted enough not to care two straws for him were not displeased to be seen dancing a minuet with him. " What new folks are these, Piers Ludlow ? " cried Lady Di, as the Chesney party advanced.

"'Tis a sweet pretty child, and you know it, so don't pretend you did not see her." " What, that little thing dressed like her own grandmother, my lady ! " said Ludlow, who was fond of affecting to know at a glance what a woman had on. " Who are they? If you can't enlighten me, I must ask them. Lud ! I vow the old fellow is Bellingham, of Spincourt." " Then I can enlighten your ladyship. Those two pieces of antiquity are Dame Chesney and her daughter." " Come, how do you know ? " asked Lady Di, whose peculiar province it was to know all about the young men she collected round her, and who was deep in the confidence of Sir Piers. " Friends of my mother's," answered the young man, " I have heard of them all my life. I believe the respective mothers plotted a match between your poor Piers and this damsel while she was yet sucking her thumb in her cradle."

"Why, the girl's not a day more than fifteen, and you are near thirty, sir ! " " Twenty-eight, my lady, twenty-eight, and from what one sees the young lady is sucking her thumb still — I must look to myself; innocence is so rare that it may be dangerous for me." " Find out how much money there is, my dear, before all things." " Certainly, 'tis no use flinging a paltry thousand or two into the gulf."

Chapter III

A BATH A LA MODE. IHE next afternoon Dolly was ordered to f sit by her mamma, with her hands folded, to receive visitors, and before long the room was filled with hoops and furbelows. Enter Lady Di Buckler j attended by her usual little crowd; !&&?& 110 one had ever seen Lady Di alone. She patted Dolly on the '- -'- cheek, and said she was a vastly fine young lady ; Dolly shrank from her loud voice, and coarse-skinned rouged cheeks, and wondered at her mamma's gracious reception of her. Lady Di had never been anything but plain, but she had an expression of shrewdness and good-nature which, in a measure, atoned for her plainness. Next in consequence came Lady Blunt, a young widow in becoming weeds, with no particular expression in her round, blue eyes, and round, fair face ; she was a remarkable example of the perfection to which affectation may be carried, and was certain of but one thing, that she was the loveliest of her sex ; the rest of her opinions were borrowed from the last person she talked with.

She was attended by a small negro boy in a turban, carrying a snuff-box, a nosegay, a bottle of perfume, a fan, and a tiny King Charles' spaniel. Following her, advanced a pale, dark-eyed girl, whom Lady Di called Cammy Thresher, and a young man, struggling with an inclination to stoutness, and a red face, which caused him a world of woe. His name was Simmonds, and he was the professed adorer of Lady Blunt. It fell to Dolly's lot to talk to the widow, who, without a particle of tact, addressed her as she would have done Cammy Thresher, who had been buffeting with the world since she was ten years old. Dolly was completely bewildered, blushed, stammered, A Bath a la Mode. 13 whispered a "yes" or a "no," until Lady Blunt, lifting her pencilled (with lamp-black) eyebrows, turned her shoulder on the " country chit," and beckoned Mr. Simmonds to her side.

" Can't talk to little Miss Simplicity," she said with placid indifference. Mr. Simmonds giggled and looked delighted, and gave up contemplating his reflection, and trying to see the back of his coat in an oval mirror of a greenish hue. Camilla Thresher slipped into a chair next to Dolly, and commenced a conversation in a low tone ; she knew better what to say, and Dolly felt interested in her. Meanwhile Lady Di rattled on to Lady Chesney, whose politeness and faith in " blood," combined to make her listen with attention, and to excuse a certain loudness to which she was unaccustomed as the fashion of the times. "To-morrow you will take your girl to the baths, of course ; for my part, though I dearly love the dish of chocolate and scandal that one gets, the steam makes me feel so monstrous queer that I dare not go often.

I suppose the waters do one a power of good somehow, but upon my life I feel very like apoplexy after them, and I do think they boil the wits out of some of 'em, him for instance," and she indicated Mr. Simmonds with a jerk of her fan. "I've a rout to-morrow afternoon," she continued, "and shall take it kind of you to bring your pretty little bird there ; how she will enjoy the fun. We shall have the other girls mad with jealousy, for upon my soul she is a vastly fine girl, and the men will be round her like wasps with a honey-pot, they love anything new. Piers Ludlow is absolutely dying to be presented, for he spied her out on the rampier." Lady Chesney drew herself up stiffly. " I am amazed that Sir Piers Ludlow should not have made himself known to his late lamented mother's oldest friend," she said.

" Lud ! now I have done the dear fellow a mischief!" cried Lady Di. " I protest he did not know from Eve who you vvere. ' Piers,' cried I, ' who are you after ? ' For there was he tearing about like mad to find out your names. Love at first sight, I declare ; but I won't tell Miss Dolly. What a pack of fools the men are, but I can't exist without 'em. Now, Sally, we must be flying, and leave Lady Chesney to a fresh swarm of foes in the shape of new acquaintances. If I don't see you to-morrow, my lady, I shall send a body-guard for you. Adieu, pretty Mistress Dolly, we shall meet again soon." And now the Chesneys may be considered fairly launched iuto Bath society. That evening Dolly had to stifle many a yawn, at a card party at the house of some old family friends, where she sat silent, playing with a puzzle, while Lady Chesney was being a little put out by losing a few shillings.