Maryland -- History -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
In less than an hour Davenport himself arrived, bristling with
importance, followed by his man carrying such a variety of silks and
satins, flowered and plain, and broadcloths and velvets, to fill the
furniture. And close behind the tailor came a tall haberdasher from
Bond Street, who had got wind of a customer, with a bewildering lot of
ruffles and handkerchiefs and neckerchiefs, and bows of lawn and lace
which (so he informed us) gentlemen now wore in the place of solitaires.
Then came a hosier and a bootmaker and a hatter; nay, I was forgetting
a jeweller from Temple Bar. And so imposing a front did the captain wear
as he picked this and recommended the other that he got credit for
me for all he chose, and might have had more besides. For himself he
ordered merely a modest street suit of purple, the sword to be thrust
through the pocket, Davenport promising it with mine for the next
afternoon. For so much discredit had been cast upon his taste on the
road to London that he was resolved to remain indoors until he could
appear with decency. He learned quickly, as I have said.
By the time we had done with these matters, which I wished to perdition,
some score of applicants was in waiting for me. And out of them I
hired one who had been valet to the young Lord Rereby, and whose
recommendation was excellent. His name was Banks, his face open and
ingenuous, his stature a little above the ordinary, and his manner
respectful. I had Davenport measure him at once for a suit of the Carvel
livery, and bade him report on the morrow.
All this while, my dears, I was aching to be off to Arlington Street,
but a foolish pride held me back. I had heard so much of the fashion
in which the Manners moved that I feared to bring ridicule upon them in
poor MacMuir's clothes. But presently the desire to see Dolly took
such hold upon me that I set out before dinner, fought my way past the
chairmen and chaisemen at the door, and asked my way of the first civil
person I encountered. 'Twas only a little rise up the steps of St.
James's Street, Arlington Street being but a small pocket of Piccadilly,
but it seemed a dull English mile; and my heart thumped when I reached
the corner, and the houses danced before my eyes. I steadied myself by a
post and looked again. At last, after a thousand leagues of wandering,
I was near her! But how to choose between fifty severe and imposing
mansions? I walked on toward that endless race of affairs and fashion,
Piccadilly, scanning every door, nay, every window, in the hope that I
might behold my lady's face framed therein. Here a chair was set down,
there a chariot or a coach pulled up, and a clocked flunky bowing a
lady in. But no Dorothy. Finally, when I had near made the round of
each side, I summoned courage and asked a butcher's lad, whistling as he
passed me, whether he could point out the residence of Mr. Manners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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