The Heroine. Barrett Eaton Stannard
amongst them. However, I slipped on (for slipping on is the heroic mode of dressing) my spangled muslin, and joined their uglinesses at breakfast, resolving to bear patiently with their features. They tell me that a public coach to London will shortly pass this way, so I shall take a place in it.
On the whole, I see much reason to be pleased with what has happened hitherto. How fortunate that I went to the house on the common! I see plainly, that if adventure does not come to me, I must go to adventure. And indeed, I am authorized in doing so by the example of my sister heroines; who, with a noble disinterestedness, are ever the chief artificers of their own misfortunes; for, in nine cases out of ten, were they to manage matters like mere common mortals, they would avoid all those charming mischiefs which adorn their memoirs.
As for this Stuart, I know not what to think of him. I will, however, do him the justice to say, that he has a pleasing countenance; and although he neither kissed my hand, nor knelt to me, yet he had the decency to talk of 'wounds,' and my 'charming tresses.' Perhaps, if he had saved my life, instead of my having saved his; and if his name had consisted of three syllables ending in i or o; and, in fine, were he not an unprincipled profligate, the man might have made a tolerable hero. At all events, I heartily hate him; and his smooth words went for nothing.
The coach is in sight.
LETTER VI
'I shall find in the coach,' said I, approaching it, 'some emaciated Adelaide, or sister Olivia. We will interchange congenial looks – she will sigh, so will I – and we shall commence a vigorous friendship on the spot.'
Yes, I did sigh; but it was at the huge and hideous Adelaide that presented herself, as I got into the coach. In describing her, our wittiest novelists would say, that her nose lay modestly retired between her cheeks; that her eyes, which pointed inwards, seemed looking for it, and that her teeth were
'Like angels' visits; short and far between.'
She first eyed me with a supercilious sneer, and then addressed a diminutive old gentleman opposite, in whose face Time had ploughed furrows, and Luxury sown pimples.
'And so, Sir, as I was telling you, when my poor man died, I so bemoaned myself, that between swoons and hysterics, I got nervous all over, and was obliged to go through a regiment.'
I stared in astonishment. 'What!' thought I, 'a woman of her magnitude and vulgarity, faint, and have nerves? Impossible!'
'Howsomdever,' continued she, 'my Bible and my daughter Moll are great consolations to me. Moll is the dearest little thing in the world; as straight as a popular; then such dimples; and her eyes are the very squintessence of perfection. She has all her catechism by heart, and moreover, her mind is uncontaminated by romances and novels, and such abominations.'
'Pray, Ma'am,' said I, civilly, 'may I presume to ask how romances and novels contaminate the mind?'
'Why, Mem,' answered she tartly, and after another survey: 'by teaching little misses to go gadding, Mem, and to be fond of the men, Mem, and of spangled muslin, Mem.'
'Ma'am,' said I, reddening, 'I wear spangled muslin because I have no other dress: and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying that I am fond of the men.'
'The cap fits you then,' cried she.
'Were it a fool's cap,' said I, 'perhaps I might return the compliment.'
I thought it expedient, at my first outset in life, to practise apt repartee, and emulate the infatuating sauciness, and elegant vituperation of Amanda, the Beggar Girl, and other heroines; who, when irritated, disdain to speak below an epigram.
'Pray, Sir,' said she, to our fellow traveller, 'what is your opinion of novels? Ant they all love and nonsense, and the most unpossible lies possible?'
'They are fictions, certainly,' said he.
'Surely, Sir,' exclaimed I, 'you do not mean to call them fictions.'
'Why no,' replied he, 'not absolute fictions.'
'But,' cried the big lady, 'you don't pretend to call them true.'
'Why no,' said he, 'not absolutely true.'
'Then,' cried I, 'you are on both sides of the question at once.'
He trod on my foot.
'Ay, that you are,' said the big lady.
He trod on her foot.
'I am too much of a courtier,' said he, 'to differ from the ladies,' and he trod on both our feet.
'A courtier!' cried I: 'I should rather have imagined you a musician.'
'Pray why?' said he.
'Because,' answered I, 'you are playing the pedal harp on this lady's foot and mine.'
'I wished to produce harmony,' said he, with a submitting bow.
'At least,' said I, 'novels must be much more true than histories, because historians often contradict each other, but novelists never do.'
'Yet do not novelists contradict themselves?' said he.
'Certainly,' replied I, 'and there lies the surest proof of their veracity. For as human actions are always contradicting themselves, so those books which faithfully relate them, must do the same.'
'Admirable!' exclaimed he. 'And yet what proof have we that such personages as Schedoni, Vivaldi, Camilla, or Cecilia ever existed?'
'And what proof have we,' cried I, 'that such personages as Alfred the Great, Henry the Fifth, Elfrida, or Mary Queen of Scots, ever existed? I wonder at a man of sense like you. Why, Sir, at this rate you might just as well question the truth of Guy Faux's attempt to blow up the Parliament-House, or of my having blown up a house last night.'
'You blow up a house!' exclaimed the big lady with amazement.
'Madam,' said I, modestly, 'I scorn ostentation, but on my word and honour, 'tis fact.'
'Of course you did it accidentally,' said the gentleman.
'You wrong me, Sir,' replied I; 'I did it by design.'
'You will swing for it, however,' cried the big lady.
'Swing for it!' said I; 'a heroine swing? Excellent! I presume, Madam, you are unacquainted with the common law of romance.'
'Just,' said she, 'as you seem to be with the common law of England.'
'I despise the common law of England,' cried I.
'Then I fancy,' said she, 'it would not be much amiss if you were hanged.'
'And I fancy,' retorted I, nodding at her big figure, 'it would not be much amiss if you were quartered.'
Instantly she took out a prayer-book, and began muttering over it with the most violent piety and indignation.
Meantime the gentleman coincided in every syllable that I said, praised my parts and knowledge, and discovered evident symptoms of a discriminating mind, and an amiable heart. That I am right in my good opinion of him is most certain; for he himself assured me that it would be quite impossible to deceive me, I am so penetrating. In short, I have set him down as the benevolent guardian, whom my memoirs will hereafter celebrate, for having saved me from destruction.
Indeed he has already done so. For, when our journey was almost over, he told me, that my having set fire to the ruin might prove a most fatal affair; and whispered that the big lady would probably inform against me. On my pleading the prescriptive immunities of heroines, and asserting that the law could never lay its fangs on so ethereal a name as Cherubina, he solemnly swore to me, that he once knew a golden-haired, azure-eyed heroine, called Angelica Angela Angelina, who was hanged at the Old Bailey for stealing a broken lute out of a haunted chamber; and while my blood was running cold at the recital, he pressed me so cordially to take refuge in his house, that at length, I threw myself on the protection of the best of men.
I now write from his mansion in Grosvenor Square, where we have just dined. His name is Betterton; he has no family, and is possessed of a splendid independence. Multitudes of liveried menials watch his nod; and he does me the honour to call me cousin.