The Tinted Venus Part 1

The Tinted Venus.

by F. Anstey.

IN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE

I.

"Ther hopped Hawkyn, Ther daunsed Dawkyn, Ther trumped Tomkyn...."

_The Tournament of Tottenham._

In Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, there is a small alley or pa.s.sage leading into Queen Square, and rendered inaccessible to all but foot pa.s.sengers by some iron posts. The shops in this pa.s.sage are of a subdued exterior, and are overshadowed by a dingy old edifice dedicated to St. George the Martyr, which seems to have begun its existence as a rather handsome chapel, and to have improved itself, by a sort of evolution, into a singularly ugly church.

Into this alley, one Sat.u.r.day afternoon late in October, came a short stout young man, with sandy hair, and a perpetual grin denoting antic.i.p.ation rather than enjoyment. Opposite the church he stopped at a hairdresser's shop, which bore the name of Tweddle. The display in the window was chastely severe; the conventional half-lady revolving slowly in fatuous self-satisfaction, and the gentleman bearing a piebald beard with waxen resignation, were not to be found in this shop-front, which exhibited nothing but a small pile of toilet remedies and a few lengths of hair of graduated tints. It was doubtful, perhaps, whether such self-restraint on the part of its proprietor was the result of a distaste for empty show, or a conviction that the neighbourhood did not expect it.

Inside the shop there was n.o.body but a small boy, corking and labelling bottles; but before he could answer any question as to the whereabouts of his employer, that artist made his appearance. Leander Tweddle was about thirty, of middle height, with a luxuriant head of brown hair, and carefully-trimmed whiskers that curled round towards his upper lip, where they spent themselves in a faint moustache. His eyes were rather small, and his nose had a decided upward tendency; but, with his pink-and-white complexion and compact well-made figure, he was far from ill-looking, though he thought himself even farther.

"Well, Jauncy," he said, after the first greetings, "so you haven't forgot our appointment?"

"Why, no," explained his friend; "but I never thought I should get away in time to keep it. We've been in court all the morning with motions and short causes, and the old Vice sat on till past three; and when we did get back to chambers, Splitter kep' me there discussing an opinion of his I couldn't agree with, and I was ever so long before I got him to alter it my way."

For he was clerk to a barrister in good practice, and it was Jauncy's pride to discover an occasional verbal slip in some of his employer's more hastily written opinions on cases, and suggest improvements.

"Well, James," said the hairdresser, "I don't know that I could have got away myself any earlier. I've been so absorbed in the laborrit'ry, what with three rejuvenators and an elixir all on the simmer together, I almost gave way under the strain of it; but they're set to cool now, and I'm ready to go as soon as you please."

"Now," said Jauncy, briskly, as they left the shop together, "if we're to get up to Rosherwich Gardens to-night, we mustn't dawdle."

"I just want to look in here a minute," said Tweddle, stopping before the window of a working-jeweller, who sat there in a narrow part.i.tion facing the light, with a great horn lens protruding from one of his eyes like a monstrous growth. "I left something there to be altered, and I may as well see if it's done."

Apparently it was done, for he came out almost immediately, thrusting a small cardboard box into his pocket as he rejoined his friend. "Now we'd better take a cab up to Fenchurch Street," said Jauncy. "Can't keep those girls standing about on the platform."

As they drove along, Tweddle observed, "I didn't understand that our party was to include the fair sect, James?"

"Didn't you? I thought my letter said so plain enough. I'm an engaged man now, you know, Tweddle. It wouldn't do if I went out to enjoy myself and left my young lady at home!"

"No," agreed Leander Tweddle, with a moral twinge, "no, James. I'd forgot you were engaged. What's the lady's name, by-the-by?"

"Parkinson; Bella Parkinson," was the answer.

Leander had turned a deeper colour. "Did you say," he asked, looking out of the window on his side of the hansom, "that there was another lady going down?"

"Only Bella's sister, Ada. She's a regular jolly girl, Ada is, you'll----Hullo!"

For Tweddle had suddenly thrust his stick up the trap and stopped the cab. "I'm very sorry, James," he said, preparing to get out, "but--but you'll have to excuse me being of your company."

"Do you mean that my Bella and her sister are not good enough company for you?" demanded Jauncy. "You were a shop-a.s.sistant yourself, Tweddle, only a short while ago!"

"I know that, James, I know; and it isn't that--far from it. I'm sure they are two as respectable girls, and quite the ladies in every respect, as I'd wish to meet. Only the fact is----"

The driver was listening through the trap, and before Leander would say more he told him to drive on till further orders, after which he continued--

"The fact is--we haven't met for so long that I dare say you're unaware of it--but _I'm_ engaged, James, too!"

"Wish you joy with all my heart, Tweddle; but what then?"

"Why," exclaimed Leander, "my Matilda (that's _her_ name) is the dearest girl, James; but she's most uncommon partickler, and I don't think she'd like my going to a place of open-air entertainment where there's dancing--and I'll get out here, please!"

"Gammon!" said Jauncy. "That isn't it, Tweddle; don't try and humbug me.

You were ready enough to go just now. You've a better reason than that!"

"James, I'll tell you the truth; I have. In earlier days, James, I used constantly to be meeting Miss Parkinson and her sister in serciety, and I dare say I made myself so pleasant and agreeable (you know what a way that is of mine), that Miss Ada (not _your_ lady, of course) may have thought I meant something special by it, and there's no saying but what it might have come in time to our keeping company, only I happened just then to see Matilda, and--and I haven't been near the Parkinsons ever since. So you can see for yourself that a meeting might be awkward for all parties concerned; and I really must get out, James!"

Jauncy forced him back. "It's all nonsense, Tweddle," he said, "you can't back out of it now! Don't make a fuss about nothing. Ada don't look as if she'd been breaking her heart for you!"

"You never can tell with women," said the hairdresser, sententiously; "and meeting me sudden, and learning it could never be--no one can say how she mightn't take it!"

"I call it too bad!" exclaimed Jauncy. "Here have I been counting on you to make the ladies enjoy themselves--for I haven't your gift of entertaining conversation, and don't pretend to it--and you go and leave me in the lurch, and spoil their evening for them!"

"If I thought I was doing that----" said Leander, hesitating.

"You are, you know you are!" persisted Jauncy, who was naturally anxious to avoid the reduction of his party to so inconvenient a number as three.

"And see here, Tweddle, you needn't say anything of your engagement unless you like. I give you my word I won't, not even to Bella, if you'll only come! As to Ada, she can take care of herself, unless I'm very much mistaken in her. So come along, like a good chap!"

"I give in, James; I give in," said Leander. "A promise is a promise, and yet I feel somehow I'm doing wrong to go, and as if no good would come of it. I do indeed!"

And so he did not stop the cab a second time, and allowed himself to be taken without further protest to Fenchurch Street Station, on the platform of which they found the Misses Parkinson waiting for them.

Miss Bella Parkinson, the elder of the two, who was employed in a large toy and fancy goods establishment in the neighbourhood of Westbourne Grove, was tall and slim, with pale eyes and auburn hair. She had some claims to good looks, in spite of a slightly pasty complexion, and a large and decidedly unamiable mouth.

Her sister Ada was the more pleasing in appearance and manner, a brunette with large brown eyes, an impertinent little nose, and a brilliant healthy colour. She was an a.s.sistant to a milliner and bonnet-maker in the Edgware Road.

Both these young ladies, when in the fulfilment of their daily duties, were models of deportment; in their hours of ease, the elder's cold dignity was rather apt to turn to peevishness, while the younger sister, relieved from the restraints of the showroom, betrayed a lively and even frivolous disposition.

It was this liveliness and frivolity that had fascinated the hairdresser in days that had gone by; but if he had felt any self-distrust now in venturing within their influence, such apprehensions vanished with the first sight of the charms which had been counteracted before they had time to prevail.

She was well enough, this Miss Ada Parkinson, he thought now; a nice-looking girl in her way, and stylishly dressed. But his Matilda looked twice the lady she ever could, and a vision of his betrothed (at that time taking a week's rest in the country) rose before him, as if to justify and confirm his preference.

The luckless James had to undergo some amount of scolding from Miss Bella for his want of punctuality, a scolding which merely supplied an object to his grin; and during her remarks, Ada had ample time to rally Leander Tweddle upon his long neglect, and used it to the best advantage.

Perhaps he would have been better pleased by a little less insensibility, a touch of surprise and pleasure on her part at meeting him again, as he allowed himself to show in a remark that his absence did not seem to have affected her to any great extent.

"I don't know what you expected, Mr. Tweddle," she replied. "Ought I to have cried both my eyes out? You haven't cried out either of yours, you know!"

"'Men must work, and women must weep,' as Shakspeare says," he observed, with a vague idea that he was making rather an apt quotation. But his companion pointed out that this only applied to cases where the women had something to weep about.