My Lady Peggy Goes to Town

When gay postillions cracked their whips, And gallants gemmed their chat with quips; When patches nestled o’er sweet lips At choc’late times; and, ’twixt the sips, Fair Ladies gave their gossips tips; Then, in Levantine gown and brooch, My Lady Peggy took the coach, For London Town!

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In the which My Lady Peggy sends off her lover broken-hearted and promptly falls into a swoon.

Kennaston Castle lies in Surrey. The Earl of Exham is master of the picturesque old pile and of the estate, and decidedly the slave of the very considerable number of debts which were up to His Lordship’s ears when he came of age, some four and fifty years ago, and by this time have reached almost to the crown of his head. He is also father to his son and heir, Kennaston of Kennaston, and to the heir’s tall twin, My Lady Peggy.

My Lady Peggy at this particular moment sits a-swinging on the top branch of a plum tree at the foot of the kitchen garden whence she commands a tolerable view of the highway.

“Impertinent sun!” cries Peggy, shading her handsome eyes with her hand as she stares off along the dusty road. “How is’t you dare shine when there’s no fine gentleman a-comin’ from the east; no gallant with disheveled locks, powdered shoulders, disordered mien, distracted looks, spurs a-digging into his beast, lips apart, heart beating like spent rabbit’s, and ‘Peggy, lovely Peggy,’ the clapper to his eager tongue at every jolt of his saddle, every rut of his way? Go cloud yourself, I say! since Sir Percy tarries. I’d have the skies weep, even if I can’t.” A peal of merriest laughter concludes this sally, and an apronful of plums comes tumbling down all over the other young woman who stands under the tree in waiting on her mistress.

“Is His Lordship not yet in sight, My Lady?” asks this one.

“Nay! that is not he, Chockey, and whisk me! but when His Lordship does come, he’ll find a very sorry entertainment. I swear, as dad says, I’ll not see him when he does appear, that will not I. Nay, shake not your head, girl. Is’t not true that Lady Peggy had once a lover?”

“’Twere truer say a dozen of that sort of gentry, Madam,” replies the buxom Chockey, as she sorts the plums, the best in her bonnet, the flaws over the wall where the chickens and hens cackle to the refuse.

“Well, well, twenty if you like! but one more favored than the rest? the properest sort of man at saddle, gun, line, wrestle, toast, song, or dance? honest, straightforward, beautiful, as dad says the angels are he saw painted on the walls at Rome. Speak I truth, eh, Chockey?”

“Madam, that you do.”

“And this paragon so worshiped his Peggy as, when she went off a-three months since to visit her godmother in Kent, he vowed by all the saints in the calendar he’d scarce survive until her return. False or true, eh, Chockey?”

My Lady Peggy punctuated this query by an accurate aim and hit, on the top of her waiting woman’s head, with an especially large plum.

“True, Madam,” dodging the fruit, and still with an eye on the road.

“And then, back comes My Lady Peggy, cutting short her stay in Kent, where she had much pleasure, to tell the truth, in the society of a very fine young nobleman.”

“Lawk, Madam! another?” interrupted the faithful Chockey.

“Another, Chock,” vouchsafes her mistress. “Sweet, sweet Sir Robin McTart!”

“Oh, My Lady!” cries the girl, vainly endeavoring to conceal a smile.

“Aye, Chock,” proceeds Peggy, “I say again, a sweet and most entrapping young man.”

“Madam, a squint eye, a wry nose, an underlip that hangs, a pair of fox-teeth, and a chin that’s gone a-huntin’ for his throat!”

“Tut, tut! Chock,” laughs Lady Peggy, leaning back in her leafy bower, “what’s all that to a nimble wit, a galloping conversation, and a faithful heart?” Lady Peggy’s tone is as light as the May breeze blowing her soft locks about her lovely blooming face, full of mockery, witchery,—and then a bit of a sigh, low as flowers’ whispers, and up with her drooped head higher than before, as in the half mannish tone her twinship and long play-fellowship with her brother have given her, she adds curtly—

“D’ye see aught coming yet, Chock?”

“No, My Lady, not yet,” answers the girl ruefully.

Peggy bites her lips until they hurt.

“As I was a-sayin’, Chock, your mistress cuts short her visit, sends word to her lover she’ll be home o’-Thursday, and, as I live! to-day’s the Monday after, and him still on the way! See him!” Peggy’s white teeth close tight, and her eyes flash, and her little hands clench. “Not I! Let him come now an’ he goes again faster than he ever traveled. The vain coxcomb! the deceitful, cozening, graceless poppet! He’ll ne’er set eyes on her he used to call his Peg again, or I die for’t.” And Peggy jumped to the ground.

“Madam! Madam!” exclaims Chockey, pointing joyfully to a cloud of dust far up the highway. “Look! Yonder comes Sir Percy! Don’t I know? Ain’t I watched his long roan any day this twelve month a-turnin’ by the lodge?”

Lady Peggy seizes Chockey’s arm, and runs breathless to the house; in, a-scrambling up the broad stairs to her chamber; a-pulling out of drawers from their chests; a-hunting of ribbons and fallals, combs, brushes, kerchiefs, perfumes, patches, powder, whatever else besides!

“Hurry, Chock, do my hair as he likes it!” urges Lady Peggy.

“Lawk, Madam! I thought you swore just now you’d never set eyes on Sir Percy again?”

“You thought! Bless you, Chock, never be a-wastin’ your time a-thinking where a woman’s concerned. When her heart steps up and lays hold the reins, the steed gallops to the goal; she’s always time to think after she’s acted.”

“Yes, Madam,” concurs Chockey, with a mental reservation back of her mouthful of pins. “There, My Lady, Your Ladyship’s hair is lovely; your Levantine gown becomes you like a pheasant do its plumage, and your eyes is a-shinin’ with love and—”

“Tut, girl! It’s anger, wrath, temper,—so!” Peggy marches up and down before the mirror, tossing her lovely head. “Thus attired, Chock, a lady can flout, deride, harass, and madden one of the opposite sex, as can she not do in cotton frock and fruit-stained apron. Give me my comfit box, I pray. Tell me how long Sir Percy now hath been cooling his heels in the drawing-room?”

“But little lacking the hour, Madam.”

“Good! I’d keep him there until Thursday, an I could. Now go tell him I’ll be with him presently.”

Chockey went.

Lady Peggy stood at the door ajar; she heard the impatient footsteps of her lover below, but yet she tarried, tapping her high red heel on the sill.

“Lud!” cried she, “an I show no proper spirit, Percy’s uncle’ll have the right of it when he says of one he’s never seen yet, ‘She’s a-hunting your bank-notes, boy! She’s heiress to debts, Sir, and by my life, Sir! I’ll never father-in-law her, so long as I’m above the sod, Sir!’ Despicable old wretch! as if ’twere not Percy I adored, without a care if he have a farthing to his fortune, or a roof to his head!”

And then Chockey, her palm warm with a sovereign, came with a rush.

“My Lady!” cries she, “’f you could see Sir Percy! White as milk, tremblin’, shakin’, chatterin’, a-begging and a-praying as you’ll condescend to go to him inside of another hour!”

“White, said you Chock?”